Which journalists would you give quotes to? [one journalist per comment, agree vote for trustworthy]
post by Nathan Young · 2025-05-07T18:39:24.322Z · LW · GW · 4 commentsThis is a question post.
Contents
Answers 10 Nathan Young 8 Nathan Young 5 Austin Chen 4 Kenku 4 Nathan Young 3 Nathan Young 2 Shankar Sivarajan 2 Nathan Young 2 Nathan Young 1 Kenku 1 Kenku 1 Kenku 1 Kenku None 4 comments
Let’s create a list of which journalists LessWrongers trust, so as to gave a guide if people get contacted.
Agree votes are for more good.
Upvotes aren’t helpful because i think heavily downvoted comments get hidden (and i expect many journalists to be underwater). If you want to use upvotes, I suggest they are for if someone is a journalist or not.
Please add each journalist as a separate entry. I will delete any entries that include multiple people. If you’d prefer not to add someone yourself, feel free to DM me.
The title question is a proxy for the thing I mean:
- Are they trustworthy?
- Do they publish articles that reflect the quotes you give
- Do they avoid cutting up quotes?
- Are they truth seeking?
Answers
Cade Metz
↑ comment by Nathan Young · 2025-05-08T09:35:07.151Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Reminder that up and downvotes are for whether you think someone is a notable journalist, otherwise the system won't work at all. (cos people will be heavily penalised for suggesting journalists we don't like)
Replies from: JiroKelsey Piper
↑ comment by Jiro · 2025-05-08T05:15:11.545Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Replies from: sil-ver↑ comment by Rafael Harth (sil-ver) · 2025-05-08T08:27:40.486Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I probably shouldn't have clicked on this but I did. FYI it slightly raised my opinion of Kelsey because I was expecting some level of incriminating evidence against her, and this is well below that level. If the worst thing about someone is that they did not write about a thing, that's a pretty good sign.
Replies from: SaidAchmiz, Jiro↑ comment by Said Achmiz (SaidAchmiz) · 2025-05-09T04:33:55.703Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Demonstrable mendacity is considerably worse than “they did not write about a thing”.
↑ comment by Jiro · 2025-05-08T20:17:59.318Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Kelsey selectively got upset to the point of crying herself to sleep over something, and posted calls to action with the implication that since she was so emotionally distraught it was callous not to act, but she only did this when it was politically expedient to do so.
I think that this is a bit more than just "didn't write". It's "didn't write when previously it was so urgent and horrible she was crying herself to sleep over it". The more urgent that she claims it is, and the more distraught she claims to be, the more the significance of ignoring it when it's done by a politician she likes. At least, she's disqualified under "Are they truth seeking?"
Replies from: shankar-sivarajan, abandon↑ comment by Shankar Sivarajan (shankar-sivarajan) · 2025-05-09T03:36:03.197Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
she's disqualified under "Are they truth seeking?"
I think having so high a bar for intellectual honesty below which everyone is equally disqualified isn't addressing the question in the right spirit.
Replies from: Jiro↑ comment by dirk (abandon) · 2025-05-09T00:31:22.645Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Having clicked through to the link you posted, it looks like what happened is that she made a tumblr post claiming to be sincerely upset about mistreatment of immigrants, contrary to what she described as conservative assumptions that people are simply pretending to care in order to score points against Trump. The poster you linked ran a search for the terms "immigrant" and "borders" on Vox, did not find any articles from her (they seemed to be interested in specifically criticism of Biden, but there were no articles about Trump either), and decided this was proof that liberals were indeed, pretending to care in order to score points against Trump. The fact that you treat this as evidence against Kelsey's character makes me think less of you, not her.
4 comments
Comments sorted by top scores.
comment by Joseph Miller (Josephm) · 2025-05-08T00:04:04.668Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
What qualifies someone to vote? I expect many are familiar with the Cade Metz / Scott Alexander fiasco but if everyone votes based on second-hand reports, then we could get misinformation cascades.
Replies from: caleb-biddulph, Nathan Young↑ comment by Caleb Biddulph (caleb-biddulph) · 2025-05-08T00:32:26.534Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Yeah, I feel like in order to provide meaningful information here, you would likely have to be interviewed by the journalist in question, which can't be very common.
At first I upvoted Kevin Roose because I like the Hard Fork podcast and get generally good/honest vibes from him, but then I realized I have no personal experiences demonstrating that he's trustworthy in the ways you listed, so I removed my vote.
Replies from: ryan_greenblatt↑ comment by ryan_greenblatt · 2025-05-08T00:35:27.059Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Met in person or have other private knowledge also seems reasonable IMO.
↑ comment by Nathan Young · 2025-05-08T09:32:51.415Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I sort of think that if you think they have good/bad vibes you can vote. For most people, most of us won't have heard of them or read much of their coverage. And if you think the number is way too high you might want to comment why you think it's off.