The ringing in of 2018 did more than just bring in a new year — it also signaled a change at The New York Times.
Arthur Gregg Sulzberger — aged 37 and known simply as A.G. — took the over the helm from his father as publisher for the newspaper. President Donald Trump, long in a dispute with The New York Times because of its favoritism to his critics as well as its penchant for misleading hit pieces, offered some sage advice for the new publisher.
A.G. Sulzberger, who takes over the post as the publisher just one year after being appointed the newspaper’s deputy publisher, is The New York Times last hope at sustainability. In order to save the failing company, President Trump urged A.G. to act in ways that achieve the goals of its founder and the younger Sulzberger’s grandfather, Adolph Ochs Sulzberger.
President Trump noted that The Times would need to deliver the news in an impartial manner without regard to political party, special interest and other factors that have swayed its reporting in the past. For the sake of restoring the newspaper’s credibility, President Trump urged A.G. to focus on getting rid of sources of fake news and hiring journalists who are both impartial and better able to find reliable information.
The presence of “fake news,” a major component of President Trump’s dislike of The New York Times, has been dogging the political landscape since his election. Recently, though, a new study found that “fake news” isn’t believed by most of those who read it. According to researchers from the University of Exeter, Dartmouth University and Princeton University, people are exposed to misinformation frequently when they engage with social media or read online news outlets. In spite of this, though, most of them consume greater quantities of news that is factual.
During their research, political scientists Andrew Guess from Princeton University, Jason Reifler from the University of Exeter and Brendan Nyhan from Dartmouth College analyzed data gathered in a sample of 2,525 Americans. Those involved in this study consented to this anonymous practice which focused on their behavior in the weeks surrounding the 2016 Presidential election.
For the sake of this study, the researchers set the definition of a “fake news site” as one that contained two or more stories with obviously inaccurate or incorrect information. The researchers found that those longtime supporters of President Trump — who tend to be conservative — were the ones most likely to consume inaccurate information on social media and news sites, as pointed out by The New York Times. These conservatives were also more likely to click through to fake news sites.
Even The New York Times admitted, though, that these longtime supporters of President Trump were exposed to a great deal more real news than fake news. In fact, it’s likely that those readers who clicked on the fake news stories did so as they read hundreds of pieces of political news over the study’s time frame. As avid followers of news in general — and political news in particular — these conservative consumers are engaged in learning more about the world and staying updated on the country’s political landscape. When factoring in the hundreds of click throughs on digital information sources such as television network sites and newspaper websites, researchers found that the participants clicked on only five articles that could be defined as “fake news.”
Even though the study is heartening because it proves that viewers aren’t likely to get pulled in by fake news, it didn’t measure whether a person’s exposure to accurate information via real news sites would result in an internalization of misinformation.
In order to guard against this, President Trump suggested that A.G. Sulzberger vet all of his newspaper’s sources thoroughly. Doing so will help The New York Times avoid having to apologize to its readers for the inaccurate information it passed on as it did when the paper declared Hillary Clinton the winner of the 2016 presidential election.
~ Conservative Zone
What happen to their banner “all the news that’s fit to print”. This appeared on the top of page one so many years ago. If I recall, it was the newspaper of record for the USA.
i saw an old movie about two news entities fighting for supremacy and who will survive. that old day was a dogy dog world for readers to survive. even mafia had territorial turf taking bribe to have newsstand there. now digital world taking over and consumers have greater selection, whatever is important. when i get ads from NYT fake news, it goes straight to delete button. NYT had/has offended so many readers. i would say 5 in 1 is reader looking for genuine news not bother to sort out who is true and who is fake news. it wasted my time having read half way thru realized the article was redacted or unsustainable to what i already determined. yes, NYT will have to convince me to read their fake news for a long time. my news source is from FOX’s news network. trump is right not to brainwash consumers.
It would be in the Nation’s best interest and therefore ultimately the NYT if they focused on ensuring what they publish is accurate. There is nothing wrong with an Editorial that expresses an opinion but when reporting on factual events then the reports MUST be factual and without political or personal bias.
Then readers can clearly identified “This is what happened+ as opposed to +This is what I think it means”.
Deporting 200,000 immigrants. What a reprehensible mean, ugly creep. There’s no way anybody can respect Conservative Zone if it keeps up this cruelty.
It’s not legal immigrants being deported. They came here the right and legal way. It’s illegals that are being deported.
Where, oh, where is sclaus living? I find it interesting when any citizen stands up against illegal aliens being deported. Another question is what does sclaus do to make a living? And where does he get his news that helps him refer to deportation of illegal aliens as something horrible?
A REAL NEWSpaper has a section titled “opinion,” a section titled “classified,” etc. the rest of the paper (advertisements excluded) should be provable fact or provable evidence of which both should be verified before publish time. The same holds true for radio and TV news. A good rule of thumb is: If a publication (Bible versions included) have one false statement, it should be relegated to the local city (or county) dump.
Lie to me once, shame on you for telling a lie.
Lie to me the second time, shame on me for being stupid enough to listen to you after the first time you lied to me.
NY Times, this DOES mean you.
Right on! That same should apply to most liberals (both R & D) who spout their alinski hype.