Devil’s advocate: being serious for years and nothing really stuck. Trivializing him by calling them weird seems to be working. Maybe taking the piss out of them is the better messaging to get the broad electorate to think less of him. 🤷♂️
My very first comment was in reply to someone who called the NYT headline a lie, and I said that just isn’t true. Subsequently, I said that I think reasonable people can disagree about the quality of the headline, but it was factually correct. I e., the headline is that Vance made a claim, which is objectively true. Then, in the body of the article, they share quotes from interviews with Watz’s former unit members that refute Vance’s claim.
I don’t know know why or how NYT chooses the exact composition of their headlines or what aspects of a story to highlight, but personally as a regular times reader and subscriber, I didn’t read the headline as giving credence to Vance, and found the article very strongly supportive of Watz’s position.
But barring something like a released federal record showing a request for out processing, it still boils down to statements of individuals, which is probably why the times doesn’t directly refute Vance’s claim as false, and instead leans on interviews from the unit and other circumstantial details to refute the claim, because they haven’t had time to authoritatively establish that. They often circle back to such things once they have had a chance to do so, and include it in summary fact checks throughout the political cycle.
If we’re going that route you may as well take issue with the word “average” instead of using mean, median, or mode. Because the lack of specificity there is even greater than leaving off the age modifier.
But the whole thing is a weird pedantic exercise anyway. They are reporting using the standard models in a way that makes sense to the reader.
Did you read the NYT article in question?
The NYT interviewed members from the unit who corroborated Watz’s claim that he decided to run for Congress before deployment orders came through. The leg work I’ve described in this thread was presenting an account of events that contradicted Vance’s claim that he intentionally avoided deployment.
I’m absolutely baffled by some of the responses I’ve gotten, lol.
Yeah, I think that’s a fair headline given the facts.
The defacto standard for economists recording and reporting average and median net worth has been to bucket it by age cohort for at least the last seventy years. Using common meanings of the terms isn’t baiting and switching it intending to deceive or bury the lede.
Not really. To do a cross generational comparison, you would look at average wealth of 18-25 year olds in the 80’s to compare it to today’s cohort in that age bracket to show age adjusted disparity. But comparing the average 60 year old to an 18 year old doesn’t mean much when one has had 42 more working years and the other has greater future earning potential.
Of course it’s age adjusted. What good does it do to compare accumulated wealth between a 60 year old and an 18 year old?
So interviewing Watz’s unit members and CO is just repeating lies?
I mean, if you only want to read from sources that make decisions for you, you are free to do so. I value news organizations that report facts and context and let me make up my own mind.
And many papers refer to themselves as papers of record. It is a term of art in the industry referring to breadth of circulation and independent editorial board. And it is precisely those editorial guidelines that prevent them from presenting one person’s claims against another as true verse false.
What does their tagline have to do with their reporting guidelines?
And sure, they could run a headline like that and it wouldn’t be editorializing so long as they actually verify the record of his rank. I suspect that they felt the more dramatic claim of abandoning his unit was the bigger story. Whether that is true or not, or the right decision, is a subjective call.
You don’t wash your hands of responsibility by just noting who said it.
And the NYT didn’t just stop by saying who said it; they did into the background and reported on the details and the context.
Nevermind that in this instance there’s also actual documentation that shows the claim is bullshit.
What records? Maybe I missed it, but the TPM, NYT and other sources have only reported statements made by people from his unit saying he shared with them his intent prior to receiving deployment orders. That is not an objective, factual, contemporaneous record to unequivocally establish the truth of the claim around intent. It’s credible, and compelling. But not the same as having releases a date stamped form to start out processing, etc, that would be unequivocal.
This idea that because Vance is speculating on his mental state that it’s just impossible to call it false is just an insane way to approach the world.
I have no objection to calling it a false claim. I think it is a false claim. I don’t need my news source to make that decision for me, unless they have unequivocal records or proof.
And no, I don’t read every article, but I also don’t parrot the headlines without reading the content and I don’t miscomprehend the titles. I don’t read the NYT headline as giving any credence to the claim from Vance. I read it as a factual statement, and being interested in the topic, I read the article. That might not be the norm on social media, but I suspect people who pay for objective news sources are similar in that regard.
And I already said that the title could be debated. Here’s an alternative that I don’t think is editorializing inappropriately:
Vance Attacks Walz’s Military Record, contrary to claims from commanding officer
But critically, it avoids making a direct determination by the reporter on the absence of objective records.
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The person I replied to led their comment with this:
The NYT repeats the lie in the headline, but buries the truth down in the article.
Which is just not true. The NYT headline is that the claim was made by Vance. I do think reasonable people can disagree over the quality of the headline, but barring an authoritative source and factual record, inserting the word “untrue” would be editorialized. There isn’t some validated record of Watz’s intent; rather, there is first hand accounts from seemingly trustworthy individuals saying he verbalized his intent months in advance of deployment orders, and his motivating story regarding the Bush campaign. I believe that version of events. But that is very different than having a court ruling from a fact finding trial court, or an independent house panels findings to justify something being objectively untrue. We can quibble over this, but that’s just what journalism standards are for news reporting agencies.
Regardless of the title, the NYT article is pretty clearly not a simple parroting of Vance’s claim, or even that the claim occurred. They found past sources, they ran details to ground, and they reported the facts to their audience. Additionally, the NYT is a pay walled news source, which I subscribe to, and I suspect the majority of their subscribers do actually read the article. And obviously, they are writing articles with their subscribers on mind, who, like me, want objective reporting with primary sources.
Let’s expand that quote:
“The job of journalism is not stenography. It is getting the full story and the meaning of that story,” said Woodward, the author of 11 best-selling books, including All the President’s Men (with Bernstein), and, most recently, State of Denial: Bush at War Part III.
So in what way does that argue for reporters to make their own independent assertions, and in what way did the NYT article fail to capture the meaning of the story?
In the case of the election denials, the media has numerous independent authorities to cite to bluntly state the fact. They have court cases, independent panels, etc, all as independent authorities with no contrary position by any real authority.
Additionally, in the case of the NYT article you link, that is exactly the retrospective editorial I said is done, but not for breaking or developing stories.
But back to the NYT article about Vance’s claim. They report that the claim was made, the investigated and found primary sources, they fleshed out the context, and appear to have fairly reported the facts which indicate Walz’s prior intent to run for office. I don’t see how that is stenography. In fact, stenography would have been simply reporting that Vance made the claim, without the associated leg work.
In the general course of reporting news, most traditional news outlets don’t make those sorts of determinations. Sometimes the editorial board will do specific fact checks of claims, but most NYT, AP, Reuters, etc, articles don’t make those sorts of determinations. They do present verified claims from other authorities or named parties, which is why they included rebuttals from those sources.
And a campaign press release is not a news outlet. Proper news outlets have reporting guidelines.
The times headline is stating what the news is, which is that a claim was made:
Vance Attacks Walz’s Military Record, Accusing Him of Avoiding a Tour in Iraq
Which is a factual statement of the news. The times piece presents the claim made, and the refutation of it and the evidence without ever making a direct claim one way or another. I e , unlike an opinion piece, the times isn’t making a subjective assessment or value statement.
Given that, what other headline can they give? Adding adjectives like “spurious” or “misleading” would be editorializing unless they are quoting an independent authority on the subject.
These disclosures are usually intended to address conflicts of interest and often exempt disclosing mortgages on your primary residence, market index funds, certain types of pensions, etc.
These disclosures generally exempt disclosing mortgages for your primary residence, market indexed funds, sector funds, and depending on the circumstances, employer retirement accounts. The idea is to identify conflicts of interest, not total assets. Owning Apple stock might bias you towards Apple, but owning shares of an indexed fund doesn’t.
Glad you got it sorted. Weird about teams though. Have a good one!
I remember buying mistmare on cd back in 2003. That thing was a broken mess of a game that crashed constantly, and no returns once you open the seal. Kids these days don’t know what a 1/10 game really is, lol. That game was so bad most of the (short) Wikipedia page on it is about it’s low scores, including a 0/10.