I read the entire draft and I’m going to disagree with you. Rather than write a lengthy diatribe, I’ll start with my main point. This is all very neat and tidy and while it may all be true, we live in a political climate where foreign governments interfere in elections by spreading disinformation. In that case, an editor is absolutely correct to push back, make suggestions and ensure their otherwise respectable publication is not used as a tool to spread more disinformation the week before an election.
> we live in a political climate where foreign governments interfere in elections by spreading disinformation. In that case, an editor is absolutely correct to push back
This is paternalistic to the extreme. Do we get to vote on whether we want such a society or is it just imposed by editorial fiat?
> spread more disinformation the week before an election.
You read the draft. Could you point out the explicit falsehoods to me?
Or are you saying we should stop the spread of inconvenient opinion pieces?
I vaguely understand the paternalistic side of your argument, but if you want to abandon editorial rigour, we have something already built for that. It’s called social media.
If social media doesn’t turn your crank, start your own publication and establish your own editorial fiat. HOWEVER, there’s a problem - if your editing sucks, you won’t attract enough readers to maintain high standards. That’s kind of the shit part of the free market - you can’t just go push a substandard product and scream about “my freedom”.
Ultimately, this draft needed some work and if you go through this thread, you can read some of the Intercept’s own comments. Personally, I found the section about possible disinformation to need more meat. The connection between the Vice President and the company is too tenuous. The article needs to cover WHY experts think it is disinformation, even just to strengthen the claim that it isn’t.
It doesn’t much matter what you want to read, but an editor still had to find balance and appropriate context. Otherwise, publications suck...
> I vaguely understand the paternalistic side of your argument, but if you want to abandon editorial rigour, we have something already built for that. It’s called social media.
Without getting into the irony of the fact that the article we're discussing was blocked on social media, I want to make clear: I don't want to abandon editorial rigor.
But I do think that electioneering concerns should be irrelevant to the context of whether you present information in the public interest. Just as reporting on Trump's tax returns or the Podesta emails were in the public interest, so too are the Hunter Biden emails.
There has not been a historical problem of major publications publishing Russian falsehoods. The "fake news" epidemic is mostly quickly stood up sites propagating on Facebook.
Nor did I see any evidence that Glenn was connected to a Russian disinformation effort. If that were to change (say, if he were found to be receiving payments from the Russian government), then I would support removing him as a writer outright.
> an editor still had to find balance and appropriate context.
Agreed. My claim here is that the editorial staff of The Intercept failed at this goal and their suggestions were not balanced.
I have experience in publishing and have edited some very complicated pieces in my time so I imagine that I look at this situation (and the draft of the Greenwald article) through a different lens.
On the subject of the Hunter Biden emails, there are a lot of problems with reporting on them. The first is that when you look at the full spectrum of Giuliani’s involvement, the laptop genesis story is a little weird. The second is that copies of the hard drive have not been widely disseminated to news rooms.
The laptop genesis story is relevant and the Greenwald article needed to devote more analysis just because of how weird it is. And as for the hard drives, journalists have their own sets of egos and biases.
Both of those points are relevant if you want to question why the media isn’t reporting on them. The laptop genesis story is weird enough to call for fact checking and verification but the hard drives aren’t available. Sadly that makes for weak articles and removes any exclusive coverage motivation to cover the emails.
We've lived in a world where foreign governments have interfered in elections by spreading disinformation for literally as long as there's been elections. That doesn't give the media an excuse to ignore corruption across half of the aisle.
You’re correct but journalists need to do better. This article isn’t strong enough for publication, the editor made reasonable suggestions and frankly, it sounds like a tantrum.
> Greenwald has in his contract that he's not subject to editorial oversight
Really? Where can I inspect that contract? Clearly, the terms that allow him to publish elsewhere if TI doesn't want to publish his stuff that he claims exist seem at odds with the claim that there are terms that he is free to publish whatever he wants in TI without TI exercising editorial control.
I suspect that the story he is painting about the contract terms is misleading, as it makes no sense as presented.
What we have right now is Greenwald's word, which given that A) I can't think of a time he's published an outright falsehood, and B) the letter from the editor didn't deny any of the facts but instead just jumped to describing the process as Greenwald having a "tantrum", I'm inclined to believe at face value.
> Clearly, the terms that allow him to publish elsewhere if TI doesn't want to publish his stuff that he claims exist seem at odds with the claim that there are terms that he is free to publish whatever he wants in TI without TI exercising editorial control.
Or it's a clause that if they mutually agree that TI isn't the best forum for an article Greenwald has written, he's explicitly allowed to take it to another forum, in contrast to the normal staff writer contract provisions.
Thanks for engaging with me friend - I promise to reply but this will take a bit of time. Unfortunately, I have to step out.
I promise to write a proper reply and don’t want you to take my silence as a sign of disrespect. It’s been fun engaging with you and I appreciate your brain - I’ll edit this comment when I get back.
Seriously thanks, this has been a lot of fun!! :)
Edit - Hey friends, meowface genuinely doesn’t deserve those downvoted. They are smart - I don’t agree with them, but they’ve made some strong points in excellent ways.
Everyone on every side is being downvoted (and then upvoted, and then downvoted, and then upvoted, and then downvoted some more...), it seems. I don't mind at all; it comes with the territory. Anyone entering into a fray like this knows what to expect. If someone strongly disagrees with me, I actually think they probably should downvote me.
First off friend, I appreciate you - both for taking the time to engage and teach, and also for how well you articulate your arguments. I realize that this entire thread has become polarized, but if you would like to continue this conversation, my email address is in my profile. I can't promise to agree with you, but I will treat you with the respect you're due and try to better understand your point of view.
As for the comments about downvotes, call me naive, but I yearn for a world where we comment when we disagree but reserve up and downvotes for statements about the quality of a comment. I don't agree with you, but I upvoted you because you made me think. Ultimately, that's what I really look for from Hacker News. I don't know everything, but I have my own unique experience. If I'm wrong, please correct me....:)
Incidentally, if you want to continue this engagement off site, let me tell you a bit about my perspective. I used to publish an indie magazine that ended up winning some awards. At one point, I was tasked with editing a submission by a high ranking gang member who wanted to write about why he doesn't like the police and why his gang is a better choice for kids. I had to tell a story to make advertising dollars and it was a hell of a story. But our magazine ran contrary to a municipal bylaw so I had to somewhat tone it all down. It was complicated and to this day, I believe that I failed the story. Anyways, I think I bring a slightly different perspective (as do you) and I would appreciate the opportunity to learn from you.
So, Hunter was possibly selling access to Joe, for the possibility of influence? If so, did it work? Hunter is a troubled man (remember Billy Carter?). I only care about what Joe did, if any of this is true.
That’s where I think this article gets weak. It seems to hinge on “nobody else is reporting it so it must be true.” The connection between the Vice President and the company isn’t strong enough. And excluding the possibility this is disinformation just makes the connection that much worse.
I feel like I’m missing about 500 words. If Greenwald would tighten his prose and strengthen the persuasion, this article could rule.
>The connection between the Vice President and the company isn’t strong enough. And excluding the possibility this is disinformation just makes the connection that much worse.
>If Greenwald would tighten his prose and strengthen the persuasion, this article could rule.
Come on friend, if you're going to pick and choose from my words, please be true to my original point. I feel that this article is missing about 500 words of facts, but that length could be trimmed down by removing some extraneous words. I'm more guilty of using extra words than anyone so I'm not qualified to judge, but I am qualified to recognize it when I see it. Crap, I used to publish a magazine - I have a little more experience in this area than the mean.
The draft is weak. It completely avoids explaining why several experts conclude it’s disinformation. Instead, it uses a very complicated set of coincidences with only one actual fact - Biden had something to do with getting one prosecutor replaced.
That’s flimsy journalism. Expecting better out of a journalist is far from voluntary ignorance.
Is there anywhere I can find a clear explanation of expert's reasoning to conclude it's disinformation?
It seems like the information is really up in the air, it will take time to determine what conclusions from it are legitimate and false. The information itself is quite clearly real, at least, I haven't seen any specific piece of information in regards to this claimed as false, just the whole subject referred to as "disinformation".
Here is a letter signed by 50 former high ranking intelligence officials - it's easy to absorb and if you're interested, it will give you plenty of threads to Google.
An editor is absolutely right to push back on a writer potentially publishing disinformation about a candidate before an election, but I disagree that this contains any disinformation or acceptance of disinformation. It covers a lot of ground, but the media censorship parts seem incontrovertible, and the parts specifically critical of Biden seem pretty balanced to me. He seems to hedge a lot of what he says and provides many perspectives and sources.
We should be very careful about disinformation, but another form of information warfare and "active measures" which I'm sure Russian intelligence is and has been deploying is the spread of skepticism of true information and belief that any or all information could be disinformation. Division, discord, fear, uncertainty, and doubt are the goals; not just falsehoods. All of these erode a sense of shared reality. Just as any claims about a political figure need support, so do claims of disinformation.
So, I think it's diatribe time. Could you quote the parts of the article (with full context) that seem like disinformation?
You know, we might not agree on this but I like you and think you’re very cool. :)
I’ll write you the reply you deserve but have to step out. Again though friend, you’re a good person and I respect your mind.
Edit - Seriously friend, I’m having a rough day in my personal life. I feel really lucky that I found you to engage with and get my mind off of things. You’re cool. Thanks for being cool. I’ll pay you back one day for this.
For the record, I read the email exchange Greenwald published and I am a little more sympathetic to the editors now. I don't totally agree with their criticisms, but I think Greenwald unnecessarily escalated into ad hominems before even giving them a chance to reply, and I think there was a valid discussion to be had there before there was no choice but to throw in the towel. He should've just kept the part of the email with the editor comments vs. article comparisons and left out the rest. I understand why he felt like he was being pressured, though.
I still don't think there's anything like blind acceptance of disinformation in the article, but he could've hedged certain parts a bit more.
Also, I kind of regret some of my earlier comments. I still think the way the media and Twitter handled this is absolutely ridiculous, and I really don't think there's a disinformation aspect to this article (bias and dis/misinformation are very different), but I kind of jumped to the conclusion about the rigor of the article after only reading about half of it (mostly the parts about the media). I think the truth about the article's rigor probably lies in the middle between your and my initial opinions of it, and similarly I think proper rigor kind of lies between Greenwald's and the editor's opinions. I prefer Taibbi's reporting on it (and Taibbi's reporting in general).
And to be clear, as I mentioned in my other comments, I've never seen very good evidence of corruption on Joe's part; my concern is pretty much just with the emails and the media's handling of them.
edit: Actually, I just went ahead and removed my very initial comment and another one. I was kind of shooting from the hip, though I definitely still stand by the parts about the media, and probably most of my other comments so far. But I might change my mind tomorrow about some of the other comments, and this definitely isn't the ideal platform for an extremely lengthy and careful debate.
This is tabloid level trash. No different than the email-gate nothingburger that dogged Hillary or made up the Birtherism claims against Obama. Greenwald should be ashamed.
The draft itself also has a not insignificant amount of leaps of faith that are not helpful in the current environment:
"Beyond that, the Journal's columnist Kimberly Strassel reviewed a stash of documents..."---this is an opinion article, why isn't the newsroom covering this explosive story?
"All of these new materials, the authenticity of which has never been disputed by Hunter Biden or the Biden campaign"---absence of a denial is not proof of its validity.
"Facebook, through a long-time former Democratic Party operative, vowed to suppress the story pending its “fact-check,” one that has as of yet produced no public conclusions."---an unnamed source told me that Facebook is really trying to push the election to Biden…
Even if Greenwald is sincere in his attempts to daylight the truth, he increasingly seems unaware or unwilling to accept that he might be or is being used as a useful idiot by foreign agents.
>"All of these new materials, the authenticity of which has never been disputed by Hunter Biden or the Biden campaign"---absence of a denial is not proof of its validity.
He explicitly explains why he thinks it does serve as some additional evidence of such, and I agree with it. It's not proof, but it's evidence:
>Why is the failure of the Bidens to claim that these emails are forged so significant? Because when journalists report on a massive archive, they know that the most important event in the reporting's authentication process comes when the subjects of the reporting have an opportunity to deny that the materials are genuine. Of course that is what someone would do if major media outlets were preparing to publish, or in fact were publishing, fabricated or forged materials in their names; they would say so in order to sow doubt about the materials if not kill the credibility of the reporting.
>The silence of the Bidens may not be dispositive on the question of the material’s authenticity, but when added to the mountain of other authentication evidence, it is quite convincing: at least equal to the authentication evidence in other reporting on similarly large archives.
----
>Facebook, through a long-time former Democratic Party operative, vowed to suppress the story pending its “fact-check,” one that has as of yet produced no public conclusions."---an unnamed source told me that Facebook is really trying to push the election to Biden…
>Just two hours after the story was online, Facebook intervened. The company dispatched a life-long Democratic Party operative who now works for Facebook — Andy Stone, previously a communications operative for Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, among other D.C. Democratic jobs — to announce that Facebook was “reducing [the article’s] distribution on our platform”: in other words, tinkering with its own algorithms to suppress the ability of users to discuss or share the news article. The long-time Democratic Party official did not try to hide his contempt for the article, beginning his censorship announcement by snidely noting: “I will intentionally not link to the New York Post.”
Seems like a temper tantrum to me, even if the journalism is legitimate. It could very well be these claims are clickbait for the journalist to strike out on his own without the publisher.
I'm reading the emails and they seem to be perfectly reasonable edit suggestions (I'm a person that's familiar with the editing process)- it points out that the article is attempting to accomplish too much with evidence that is actually vague and suggests increased focus to critique that liberal media isn't holding Biden's feet to the fire. Asking for an article to be narrowed down in scope is a perfectly good suggestion as an editorial board, especially in news articles where too much stuff can make the article ineffective. Furthermore, the editor is nothing less than professional/polite, while the response is full of wild accusations like "What's happening here is obvious: you know that you can't explicitly say you don't want to publish the article because it raises questions about the candidate you and all other TI Editors want very much to win the election in 5 days."
I think Greenwald is probably right regarding his accusations in the email, but I agree that they weren't necessary to include, at least so early in the discussion process. He did seem to react unnecessarily harshly, before his email even received a reply.
As you say, he was the one who first began displaying the unprofessional behavior. He probably should have just sent like half of his follow-up email (the citations of the email compared to the article) and given them a chance to reply. But I also understand why he felt he was being unduly pressured and why staying there wouldn't have been wise for him.
> I'm a person that's familiar with the editing process
I am also very familiar with the editing process. I'm not saying that the editing suggestions are beyond what you would ever see in an editorial context, but I would never characterize them as "basic edit suggestions."
Much of the quibbling in the edits to me suggests ulterior motive, like the rejection of the idea that there has been "suppression" of the story (there obviously has).
And if you're familiar with the editing process, you'd know that edits are not always completely apolitical, I know people who have been asked to make edits for political reasons in major national publications.
I think it is hard to claim this is just equal editorial scrutiny, given the publication of multiple false claims around the Hunter Biden story (ie. "very likely to be Russian disinformation", etc.).
> the editor is nothing less than professional/polite
To me, I don't necessarily always side with the actor who appears to be more professional, though I do agree that Greenwald comes off as rude in the email.
