The New York Times - They're even more evil now

yahooyahoo said:

Does a "result" equal a stand-alone article? Or could that must be a mention of Claudine Gay somewhere in the paper?

The latter, except they were mentions anywhere on the Times site and in emailed newsletters, not just in the paper. If you saw the results list (I duplicated the search a day after DB), you’d have seen 33 daily newsletters, labeled Briefing or DealBook, which mentioned Gay in roundups that merely referred newsletter subscribers to the actual articles; 17 opinion pieces, because columnists and outside contributors apparently felt they had a lot to say on the subject; a dozen brief items that were published as running online coverage the day Gay resigned and then were compiled into a single article; passing references to Gay in articles about the Penn president; and odds and ends like letters to the editor, an SNL recap, a corrections file, etc.

All in all, it looked like the list contained about 20 news articles on the Gay/Harvard dispute. Numerous for a month, but shy of 95.

Holding up strong.

DaveSchmidt said:

The latter, except they were mentions anywhere on the Times site and in emailed newsletters, not just in the paper. If you saw the results list (I duplicated the search a day after DB), you’d have seen 33 daily newsletters, labeled Briefing or DealBook, which mentioned Gay in roundups that merely referred newsletter subscribers to the actual articles; 17 opinion pieces, because columnists and outside contributors apparently felt they had a lot to say on the subject; a dozen brief items that were published as running online coverage the day Gay resigned and then were compiled into a single article; passing references to Gay in articles about the Penn president; and odds and ends like letters to the editor, an SNL recap, a corrections file, etc.

All in all, it looked like the list contained about 20 news articles on the Gay/Harvard dispute. Numerous for a month, but shy of 95.

my bad in not considering that they would return results from non-articles. a filter limiting the search to only news articles or op-eds would be useful.

regardless, your analysis of the results just emphasizes the point that they over-covered the story. not only did they publish way too many articles, but they also pushed it through their briefings, etc.

Mr. Drum chimes in.

drummerboy said:

a filter limiting the search to only news articles or op-eds would be useful.

In the screenshot you posted, there’s a dropdown menu for Section under the search bar. Choose Opinion and the results will be op-eds. Choose U.S. for a search like Harvard Claudine Gay and the results will be news articles. But you’d have to look through the list, not just at the number, to filter out the tangential stories on your own.

I mean, c'mon. Is that Trump headline front page material? And the headline next to it ignores the main story, which is Republicans' blatantly political obstructionism. Plus is it really a "crisis"? WTAF?