Fun that the org chart posted says "confidential" at the top. I'd like to see that org chart compared to other news organizations, or maybe compared to the structure The Intercept had in it's first decade. It seems still about two-thirds weighted towards journalists, especially without knowing how many freelancers they hire. Is it that crazy a structure? (I mean... you're gonna need HR, digital team, and yeah, with a company like that you will definitely need lawyers...)
The org chart for the Intercept doesn't look "top heavy", in fact it looks pretty well run. It's a news outlet that sometimes publishes controversial stories that are disliked by various governments, you're probably going to be happy there's a legal team backing you up and a tech team keeping the site up?
I'm more worried about the legal department not restricting themselves to legal opinions. On a newspaper, you'll want lawyers who are willing to field fights with powerful outside entities. If these lawyers are not open to the idea that some rich people are going to be inconvenienced by the reporting, they will not want to help the reporter finding robust ways of publishing dicey material.
The racket is that billionaire Bezos gives money to retired Admiral McRaven, who donates it to disabled veterans?
That is NOT a racket, and it can't be. If anything, the racket is how Bezos makes his money (Amazon, low taxes) not how he gives it away.
And the Washington Post should not depend on hand-outs from Bezos (the "missing" $100 mio).
Can't he see that's the worst position for a newspaper to be in... for example from his own personal journey at The Intercept, or maybe by following what's happening to Twitter? A sustainable business model is better than being beholden to bread crumbs falling from the table.
Furthermore, the $50/$100 million split isn't explained well either.
I see a lof of mad fury here, but not good storytelling or a good choice of stories. I think the other parts of the article – Bill not given Slack access, a hold-up on the member list and the UN vote story – are much more relevant.
I wish the author best of luck, but I think he'll need it.
I think that if society or societal standards are going to mean anything at all, it's that it's fair to expect, to demand even, that people make the necessary efforts to achieve information literacy.
It may be true that you hear similar refrains from different quarters, but, the best diagnosis I have heard of this is that it's a similarity in psychology without a similarly in underlying facts.
So broad brush despair against "the system" as a whole is, to me, not doing the homework of trying to differentiate. Sometimes those claims will be true, sometimes they won't, and the devil will be in the details. And we shouldn't regard any discussion to have truly begun until participants show an interest in doing the homework.
I would say the balance of emphasis at the Intercept has been pretty clearly on truth-to-power stories, and they clearly haven't prioritized customer lock-in or profitability to a similar degree. I might be right or wrong here, but meaningful conversations will, as ever, have to center on specific facts pertinent to their history rather than broad brush declarations of despair at the impossibility of knowing.
The article has a childish tone (comparing head chopping regimes to, er, wealthy people) but past all the bluster there may be some substance here - The intercept killed a story about Jeff Bezos donating 50M to a charity run by Admiral William McRaven. Sadly little detail about what this person would’ve given Bezos in return.
> What I don't understand about journalists is why they think any of us believe they especially deserve anyone's trust.
Excellent question.
I guess the answer is simply mutatis mutandis: they appreciate that they don't have, but do need our trust and that uttering said refrain might achieve installing it :-)
I personally find it really annoying that an individual deems it important to let a whole community know they have made an existantial choice to resign from their place of employment.
Who is really bothered?
Imagine if every person on the planet deemed it important to let the whole world know they just resigned from their jobs.
Thousands upon thousands of people resign every day.
Don't people publicly explain why they've resigned when they believe the knowledge will benefit the public?
Eg, in this case:
"The Intercept has been taken over by suits who have abandoned its founding mission of fearless and adversarial journalism, and I can’t continue in an environment where fear of funders is more important than journalism itself."
Given it's often the case, your website would probably be quite a good source of topical news.
> an individual deems it important to let a whole community know they have made an existantial choice to resign from their place of employment.
Which individual did that to which community? Someone posted on their personal blog that they've changed jobs, and that exists on the internet for a different person to post it to hackernews. What exactly do you want to change here?
Because that's why we invented blogs? Blogs is short for web logs which were personal journals on the web. Sharing your personal story, including things like changing jobs, is totally reasonable activity for a web based journal, wouldn't you say?
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ofcourseyoudo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] drawfloat|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] lolc|1 year ago|reply
Sounds like The Intercept got neutered.
[+] [-] knallfrosch|1 year ago|reply
And the Washington Post should not depend on hand-outs from Bezos (the "missing" $100 mio). Can't he see that's the worst position for a newspaper to be in... for example from his own personal journey at The Intercept, or maybe by following what's happening to Twitter? A sustainable business model is better than being beholden to bread crumbs falling from the table.
Furthermore, the $50/$100 million split isn't explained well either.
I see a lof of mad fury here, but not good storytelling or a good choice of stories. I think the other parts of the article – Bill not given Slack access, a hold-up on the member list and the UN vote story – are much more relevant.
I wish the author best of luck, but I think he'll need it.
[+] [-] apollo_mojave|1 year ago|reply
That's the same refrain I hear from tons of people, from Donald Trump and Biden to TurboTax to the HR department.
What I don't understand about journalists is why they think any of us believe they especially deserve anyone's trust.
[+] [-] glenstein|1 year ago|reply
It may be true that you hear similar refrains from different quarters, but, the best diagnosis I have heard of this is that it's a similarity in psychology without a similarly in underlying facts.
So broad brush despair against "the system" as a whole is, to me, not doing the homework of trying to differentiate. Sometimes those claims will be true, sometimes they won't, and the devil will be in the details. And we shouldn't regard any discussion to have truly begun until participants show an interest in doing the homework.
I would say the balance of emphasis at the Intercept has been pretty clearly on truth-to-power stories, and they clearly haven't prioritized customer lock-in or profitability to a similar degree. I might be right or wrong here, but meaningful conversations will, as ever, have to center on specific facts pertinent to their history rather than broad brush declarations of despair at the impossibility of knowing.
[+] [-] lolc|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nailer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] repelsteeltje|1 year ago|reply
Excellent question.
I guess the answer is simply mutatis mutandis: they appreciate that they don't have, but do need our trust and that uttering said refrain might achieve installing it :-)
[+] [-] airtonix|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] reify|1 year ago|reply
Who is really bothered?
Imagine if every person on the planet deemed it important to let the whole world know they just resigned from their jobs.
Thousands upon thousands of people resign every day.
I think I will set up a website:
Ihavejustresigned.com
[+] [-] robxorb|1 year ago|reply
Eg, in this case:
"The Intercept has been taken over by suits who have abandoned its founding mission of fearless and adversarial journalism, and I can’t continue in an environment where fear of funders is more important than journalism itself."
Given it's often the case, your website would probably be quite a good source of topical news.
I hope someone does set it up.
[+] [-] dudisubekti|1 year ago|reply
Personal blogs are literally made for this use case, public autobiography.
[+] [-] SCdF|1 year ago|reply
Which individual did that to which community? Someone posted on their personal blog that they've changed jobs, and that exists on the internet for a different person to post it to hackernews. What exactly do you want to change here?
[+] [-] asadotzler|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] locallost|1 year ago|reply