Comment by smsm42
1 day ago
A: it looks like this article is no more than an ad
B: Oh noes, it can't be, they have specific policy against that!
A: That policy actually does not have anything about this.
B: Ah, that's because they are so ethical that they didn't even think to mention this in their policy!
Sure, this sounds extremely convincing.
(and of course, nobody ever ignored or tiptoed around a written policy, ever)
I think an important piece of media literacy is being able to tell if a publication is likely to follow journalistic ethics or not. SF Standard pass that test for me.
What is the value of this piece? Who benefits from people reading it?
It's clearly access journalism - the Replit press team set this up, and the SF Standard took the opportunity.
For Replit it's a good way to raise the profile of their founder, important for this phase of the company.
The SF Standard get an interesting profile out if this because Masad is an unconventional shape of founder. The Palestinian angle is a great hook to build a story around, especially right now. The Standard's editorial brand involves presenting tech stories from their own unique angle which makes this a good fit for them.
This is their best performing story on HN in a long time, so it clearly resonated with an audience that they presumably want to reach: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=sfstandard.com
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