Ask HN: How major newspapers make editorial decisions?
The Israel - Gaza conflict coverage in New York Times and other such caliber journalism sources is heartbreaking beyond imagination.
I can’t help but notice the coverage articles does not allow comments. I am curious from a journalist’s perspective how such decisions are made? On the receiving end feels that they disable this because the news outlet may be afraid to unearth 1) how people really feel about this and/or 2) something that is not in alignment with their point of view or agenda.
How do news outlets make such calls. What are the factors considered. Who is responsible for making such calls.
It would be great if people can shed light on the why behind the actions.
4 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 16.1 ms ] threadIn the J-school I attended we learned that editorial decisions weigh many factors, but newsworthiness tended to come first. Other things like reliability of sources, liability for libel, etc come next. We were taught to weigh things like "if we report this, will it cause harm to the community, and does the newsworthiness outweigh the potential form harm?" As an example, news outlets largely stopped reporting on suicides, because copycat suicides happen. They don't report the names of certain kinds victims, like minors.
At any legit news outlet there will be an editorial board that makes the publication decisions, made up of senior experienced journalists.
Most outlets that disable comments did so because of toxic behavior commenters directed at each other, not because the comments were second-guessing editorial decisions.
Fairly sparse comments on fairly-routine stories are generally a good thing. Occasional commenters may add details to the story, and a few random comments can at least look good.
Vs. reams of posting-in-anger comments on some hot-button story? Huge cost, and minimal-at-best potential upside. Let 'em scream on someone else's site.
This seems to encapuslate all that's wrong with journalism today which tries to report whatever was said on social media prior to confirming it. Sources like the NYT now just read like a curated version of Twitter - someone said X, someone else said Y. Sorry, but that's not journalism or news. It's just a reader's digest of a bunch of ignorant, unvalidated opinions.
And if the articles themselves are merely lagging summaries of the social media wars, the comments can't be much more elevated.
Good question. It's important to know that "reliable" sources can push clickbait, and the headline and framing contributes to turning an ordinary story into clickbait. For example, in a science context, reporting on new research findings about aging can be kind of dry, but give that same research to a content farm and it could turn into "Scientists Find Weird Diet That STOPS AGING"
> now just read like a curated version of Twitter
That's a problem, and there are whole "news" outlets dedicated to grabbing a few tweets, writing some words around it, and calling it a story. That said, there is still a great deal of deep-dive long form journalism out there, but guess what: It doesn't show up as well in SEO, and isn't promoted by Meta/Google/Twitter, so of course the stuff that tends towards clickbait and social media summaries is going to easy to find.
Often the major media at the national/international level becomes a conversation with itself and with the in-group journalists doing the reporting. My theory about why more media haven't dropped twitter is because they are wedded it as the medium for which that instant conversation happens.
Newspapers, for example, used to have a Copy Desk, where the final editing and composing of the paper happened. Within the computers system where reporters filed stories and editors gathered and refined them for publication, most newsrooms had a file or section for internal talk and discussion. Think of it like an internal Slack channel, except it wasn't instant. I happened to have worked at a newspaper at one point, as a programmer, and the stuff that lived in that system was wild, especially when big breaking news happened. Now, I believe, Twitter plays that role, but across organizations.