The Power of the Jump™: New York Times Edition
So when I wrote my post about that deceptive New York Times story about the Dobbs decision, I predicted that they would put the first four paragraphs on the front page and make sure the jump was before the sixth paragraph. That’s because the information that undercut the B.S. in the first four paragraphs began appearing in the sixth paragraph. Here was my prediction:
Moreover, this technique of starting out with a wildly misleading claim and then gradually backfilling the story with facts that totally undercut the initial claim has been around at least as long as I have had this blog (over 20 years) and almost certainly longer than that. I had a regular feature called The Power of the Jump that showed how the L.A. Times routinely fed you one version of events on the front page and tell you the inconvenient facts on the back pages, after the “jump”–where nobody reads.
My guess is, this Kantor/Liptak story will likely appear on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow, with the first four paragraphs prominently featured. I bet the jump comes before the sixth paragraph and certainly before the ninth.
But I guess we’ll see.
We did.
Here’s a closer image of the story. Count the number of paragraphs. (And notice the other stories, which have plenty more than four paragraphs on the front page, showing that they are capable of putting eight paragraphs on the front page when they want to.)
Again: “My guess is, this Kantor/Liptak story will likely appear on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow, with the first four paragraphs prominently featured. I bet the jump comes before the sixth paragraph and certainly before the ninth.”
Every bit of this was deliberate and planned.
Always trust content from Patterico.
Dog bites man. Usually they don’t even back up the headline in the first few paragraphs.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 12/18/2023 @ 9:53 pmYet another reason why nobody reads newspapers.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 12/18/2023 @ 9:54 pmSo what? They are a liberal corporate establishment paper appealing to that audience. They ignored AOC’s primary run for being anti-establishment at least back then. They are a sophisticated form of yellow journalism told by their corporate masters feign being unbiased. All journalism is biased and everyone knows it. The liberal media tries to do this by not reporting stories called spiking. It doesn’t like to outright lie because it is embarrassing when they get caught! Conservative media lie and say their unbiased and so do liberal establishment media. The far right and left media proudly say what they are. Your story had no effect withers dobbs would pass or not.
asset (65cd88) — 12/18/2023 @ 11:00 pmThe Times is just a propaganda arm of the Democratic party.
Their own version of Pravda if you will.
whembly (5f7596) — 12/19/2023 @ 6:57 amwhembly (5f7596) — 12/19/2023 @ 6:57 am
No, that’s the Washington Post. The truth is out there, in the New York Times, which is often not the case in the Washington Post.
There’s a rebellion of some sorts at the New York Times. (against some “activist” members f the newspaper Guild)
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/new-york-times-staffers-form-journalistic-independence-caucus-amid-concerns-over-unions-actions-f9be2a58
Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/19/2023 @ 7:15 amI would say the newsletter of the New York cocktail party circuit. I don’t know if you have seen the “How I Met Your Mother” episode with Peter Bogdanovich, Arianna Huffington, Michael York, and NYT crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz, among others, but that’s pretty much my view of the character of NYT.
nk (bb1548) — 12/19/2023 @ 7:20 amI don’t know if you have seen the “How I Met Your Mother” episode
nk (bb1548) — 12/19/2023 @ 7:20 am
I am shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that nk watches sitcoms. 😛
norcal (87e98f) — 12/19/2023 @ 2:27 pm