> The one I gave in my first comment here, the one apparent to most people following the history: "hey, I guess it really isn't so easy to just learn to code after a layoff and make that your new job."

Two points:

1. No one's disagreeing with you on that. Certainly not me, and probably not any of the journalists who wrote any of those stories or who were laid off

2. That's not the argument that's being made by these drive by "learn to code" comments (and if the commenters think they're making that argument, it's about as cogent as me arguing against your non-existent Stalinist political beliefs).

> If I can summarize the rest of your comment, it sounds like you're saying that, after ignoring context, history, and subtext, and focusing solely on the three words, then there's nothing to the argument.

Apparently you can't summarize it. I was just showing that you didn't show that "that buzzfeed-style news sites were casually promoting the idea that any laid-off worker could just learn to code and make that their new job."

Edit: I think it's pretty clear that at one time many out-of-touch techies (and probably some business types) advocated for blue collar people to "learn to code" as a solution to a lot of economic dislocation. I wouldn't be surprised if journalists also reported those ideas. However, I'm not at all convinced that journalists, or any journalistic sub-group of note, themselves advocated for that idea. I also wouldn't be surprised that some people's fallible memories conflated the journalists with the out-of-touch techies they reported on, and misremembered the former as acting like the latter.

>>"hey, I guess it really isn't so easy to just learn to code after a layoff and make that your new job."

> No one's disagreeing with you on that. Certainly not me, and probably not any of the journalists who wrote any of those stories or who were laid off

Wait, what? I wish you had made that clear before. If you agree with that, then wouldn't you say it's pretty irresponsible to publish articles that very suggestively imply that claim, even if they don't say so explicitly? If so, then it sounds like we're in agreement on the broad points, just not the particulars.

>Apparently you can't summarize it. I was just showing that you didn't show that "that buzzfeed-style news sites were casually promoting the idea that any laid-off worker could just learn to code and make that their new job."

That ... still sounds like a pretty good summary of your comment actually.

"Aha, this article didn't explicitly say that so you must be wrong, because obviously no one is ever misled by the suggestions or framing."

That's my core point. It's not enough that they didn't explictly spell out the implication. Most people -- yes, probably even you when you're not really trying to argue for a preferred conclusion -- read articles with a context, being aware of the history and subtext. Yes, cool, you can show that they didn't explicitly say the words. So what? Obviously there's more to consider.

Late edit:

>That's not the argument that's being made by these drive by "learn to code" comments (and if the commenters think they're making that argument, it's about as cogent as me arguing against your non-existent Stalinist political beliefs).

Where do you get that? Obviously a huge portion of people (it's obviously to me at least) feel like these publications were being casual about this idea, and in that case, yes, "a word to the wise" is enough -- or three words, as the case may be.

> That's my core point. It's not enough that the didn't deliberately spell out the implication. Most people -- yes, probably even you when you're not really trying to argue for a preferred conclusion -- read articles with a context, being aware of the history and subtext. Yes, cool, you can show that they didn't explicitly say the words. So what? Obviously there's more to consider.

All right then. Find an article and walk us through it, in detail (because the devil can be in the details). Prove your point.

But, you were claiming that "that buzzfeed-style news sites were casually promoting the idea that any laid-off worker could just learn to code and make that their new job," with the implication that justified drive-by "learn to code" comments targeted at laid off journalists. We're getting a long way away from "casual promotion" when we're analyzing (for instance) the coal miner story in Guardian for subtext.

Also, the edit I made before your reply may be relevant.

Reply to late edit:

> Where do you get that? Obviously a huge portion of people (it's obviously to me at least) feel like these publications were being casual about this idea, and in that case, yes, "a word to the wise" is enough -- or three words, as the case may be.

Your word choice is getting towards my thoughts on this. If there's any genuine belief behind these harassing comments, it's a feeling that something false is actually true.

>All right then. Find an article and walk us through it, in detail (because the devil can be in the details). Prove your point.

Now it feels like you haven't read my comments, including the part that you just quoted.

My entire point is that an article wouldn't say (and doesn't have to say) that "This means that any of y'all out there can do the same thing as these coal miners that created a tech shop." So it would be pretty pointless to "walk through" an article and "prove my point" by finding such a line; that sounds like the challenge you would make if you wanted to sound like you were being rigorously evidence-based but also weren't aware of the points I had just made.

>We're getting a long way away from "casual promotion" when we're analyzing (for instance) the coal miner story in Guardian for subtext.

No. "Look at this success story, probably a trend" is exactly what counts as casual promotion! Again, do you hold to this standard on any other issue? Do you deliberately ignore any subtext, and ridicule everyone who reads such subtext into an article? Or is it just for this one issue?

>Also, the edit I made before your reply may be relevant.

Sure, that would be a fair point, that this zeitgeist was actually misreading the reporting of their own biases as journalists promoting it. If you had made that point, then I would at least agreed that that would be a reason that "learn to code" ridicule was misdirected. So why start by pretending the entirety of the history was a 4chan campaign, when you had much better substance to contribute?

>Your word choice is getting towards my thoughts on this. If there's any genuine belief behind these harassing comments, it's a feeling that something false is actually true.

Yes, but it's also possible to promote such a feeling while maintaining the plausible deniability -- that you seem to buy into! -- that "oh, hey, we just reported one obviously-atypical tech shop started by coal miners, not our fault you generalized from that".

> My entire point is that an article wouldn't say (and doesn't have to say) that "This means that any of y'all out there can do the same thing as these coal miners that created a tech shop." So it would be pretty pointless to "walk through" an article and "prove my point" by finding such a line; that sounds like the challenge you would make if you wanted to sound like you were being rigorously evidence-based but also weren't aware of the points I had just made.

I wasn't asking you to find a line or a pithy quote. I was asking you to explain how you thought a particular article proved your point in detail, with examples of what the article says and the subtext you claim is there, rather than just insisting one exists that does. Basically, you're talking in vague abstractions that I don't think are true in the case, and the way to deal with that disconnect is to talk about the specific reasoning.

But this is all a digression. Even if some journalist somewhere wrote an article that consisted entirely of "Those stupid coal miners need to stop complaining about their lost jobs! They should all quit their bitching and learn to code!" repeated over and over, it wouldn't justify the harassment of all journalists as a class with the phrase "learn to code" like has happened here and elsewhere. That's the real topic of this thread.

> No. "Look at this success story, probably a trend" is exactly what counts as casual promotion! Again, do you hold to this standard on any other issue? Do you deliberately ignore any subtext, and ridicule everyone who reads such subtext into an article? Or is it just for this one issue?

Eh, not necessarily. Reporting on something is not promotion, it's reporting. Reporting on something that looks like a trend is not promotion, it's reporting. It's journalists' job to report a lot of varied things: good, bad, and neutral; novel and familiar; human interest stories and world changing events. To be more specific the actual journalistic articles I've read in this thread read as reporting, not promotion.

Also, sometimes that "subtext" is just the interpretive bias the reader brings, and nothing more.

> Yes, but it's also possible to promote such a feeling while maintaining the plausible deniability -- that you seem to buy into! -- that "oh, hey, we just reported one obviously-atypical tech shop started by coal miners, not our fault you generalized from that".

Yeah, it's possible, but don't you think that's a pretty conspiratorial way of looking at it? Maybe the Guardian (to use a specific example) just reported on that company because it was an interesting story that people might want to read about?