We know, from like a bunch of internal documents, that the New York Times has been operating for the last two or three years on a, like, grand [narrative structure], where there’s a number of head editors who are like, “Over this quarter, over this current period, we want to write lots of articles, that, like, make this point...”
Can someone point me to an article discussing this, or the documents itself? While this wouldn’t be entirely surprising to me, I’m trying to find more data to back this claim, and I can’t seem to find anything significant.
It’s worth noting that in contrast to what Oliver is saying this is not a new phenomenon of the last few years but the New York Times operated historically that way:
For starters, it’s important to accept that the New York Times has always — or at least for many decades — been a far more editor-driven, and self-conscious, publication than many of those with which it competes. Historically, the Los Angeles Times, where I worked twice, for instance, was a reporter-driven, bottom-up newspaper. Most editors wanted to know, every day, before the first morning meeting: “What are you hearing? What have you got?”
It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper’s movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called “the narrative.” We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the NY Times is currently less than this than it was historically. As far as I know, they got rid of their Page One meeting which was narrative-based, and wanted to replace it with a focus on user metrics.
More links: Here is the link to Kelsey’s original tweet, the one depicted in the screenshot. Here and here is Hacker News coverage on the topic. I also remember hearing this claim, but don’t recall how strong the evidence for it was.
I remember some pretty explicit confirmation of a broader thing where the NYT would agree on some broad narrative related to some issue, and then primarily source stories that support that narrative. But I can’t find the links at the moment.
Can someone point me to an article discussing this, or the documents itself? While this wouldn’t be entirely surprising to me, I’m trying to find more data to back this claim, and I can’t seem to find anything significant.
It’s worth noting that in contrast to what Oliver is saying this is not a new phenomenon of the last few years but the New York Times operated historically that way:
It wouldn’t surprise me if the NY Times is currently less than this than it was historically. As far as I know, they got rid of their Page One meeting which was narrative-based, and wanted to replace it with a focus on user metrics.
I can’t find the link to the full story, which I remember hearing I think first from Kelsey Piper, but the screenshot in this tweet has some references to it: https://twitter.com/RyanRadia/status/1588258509548056576
More links: Here is the link to Kelsey’s original tweet, the one depicted in the screenshot. Here and here is Hacker News coverage on the topic. I also remember hearing this claim, but don’t recall how strong the evidence for it was.
I remember some pretty explicit confirmation of a broader thing where the NYT would agree on some broad narrative related to some issue, and then primarily source stories that support that narrative. But I can’t find the links at the moment.
Maybe you picked it up from me, I made the point multiple times on LessWrong, among others on https://www.lesswrong.com/s/B26RwutvaDa6hvJuP/p/yYqrMFzsRgLgeguPL