Comment by jka
6 years ago
There's quite a lot of scope for interpretation of this statement:
> Unfortunately, he told me he had discovered my real name and would reveal it in the article, ie doxx me.
It's not clear from the post whether there was any conversation with the journalist about this aspect of the planned article, and/or whether there were any requests not to include the person's full name.
I think most of us agree that staying well-informed is useful and important, and I'd argue that news organizations contribute effectively to that.
Blogging and tweeting are useful additional mediums, but they can't always achieve the same results as publications that have research teams, archives, experienced investigative reporters, and legal teams to defend them when they encounter powerful opposition.
It could be worth taking a pause and waiting for more details before attributing all of the blame to the NYT (or even more wildly, journalism as a whole) here.
Edit (append-only): as noted elsewhere (see child comments) there had been some two-way conversation with the journalist regarding publication of the author's name.
It could be useful to learn more about what the nature of NYT's policy on publishing real names is, and the intent and reasoning behind that.
> It's not clear from the post whether there was any conversation with the journalist about this aspect of the planned article, and/or whether there were any requests not to include the person's full name.
There were; this has been made clear elsewhere. The reporter was also made aware that the blog would be shut down if it came to that, and still refused to redact OP's real name from their article.
(Allegedly, it seems that NYT general policy can allow a person to be anonymous if warranted, but it's less clear that pseudonimity is contemplated.)
Thank you - could you provide a link about those requests and discussion? I'd like to update my understanding (and comment) based on those.
https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/he95ak/blog...
1 reply →
From the blog post:
> When I expressed these fears to the reporter, he said that it was New York Times policy to include real names, and he couldn’t change that.
What more details are needed?
The intent and nature of the article could be important; and where it exists on various spectrums including newsworthiness, public importance, accuracy, information content.
It's also possible that the article - even if hardly read today - could become relevant in future in ways that we can't currently understand.
It could be argued that deleting the blog was an attempt to influence or close down aspects of the yet-unpublished article and reporting process. In other ways it may have actually added additional context.