{"id":6989,"date":"2018-09-06T17:27:03","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T17:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialpanic.org\/?p=6989"},"modified":"2018-09-06T17:27:03","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T17:27:03","slug":"how-does-a-college-student-intern-become-a-senior-adviser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/2018\/09\/06\/how-does-a-college-student-intern-become-a-senior-adviser\/","title":{"rendered":"How does a college student &#8220;intern&#8221; become a &#8220;senior adviser&#8221;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2011, the New York Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/07\/31\/opinion\/sunday\/why-redacting-e-mails-is-a-bad-idea.html\">admitted<\/a> several anonymous sources for a front page article about shale gas with titles of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;official&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;energy analyst&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;federal analyst&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;senior adviser&#8221; [note &#8211; may be spelled either adviser or advisor]<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;senior official&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>were, in actual fact,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>a college student intern in the organization.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The New York Times defended its use of an intern as a &#8220;senior official&#8221;, said the New York Times Public Editor[1].<\/p>\n<p>Source: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/07\/31\/opinion\/sunday\/why-redacting-e-mails-is-a-bad-idea.html\">Why Redacting E-Mails Is a Bad Idea &#8211; The New York Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>News reporters elevate titles all the time. I once worked for a tech company and had the title Program Manager. In that organization, a Program Manager is typically a low level position that drives a project but who does not manage people.<\/p>\n<p>Several news reports included quotes from program managers at the company, and referred to program managers as &#8220;executives&#8221;. The title inflation made the news report more persuasive through an &#8220;Appeal to Authority&#8221;. (As a corollary, I was thrilled to learn that I had been, in fact, an executive! Hah hah!)<\/p>\n<p>Last Fall, journalist and founder and editor of MAKE Magazine <a href=\"https:\/\/makezine.com\/2017\/11\/19\/apology-to-naomi-wu\/\">Gary Doherty sourced inflammatory and defaming comments about a female Chinese DIY maker from an anonymous Reddit post<\/a>. He later <a href=\"https:\/\/makezine.com\/2017\/11\/06\/open-note-to-naomi-wu\/\">apologized<\/a> and wrote a column blaming his actions on his being &#8220;a white, Western, male CEO&#8221; rather than acknowledge his own idiocy was the sole cause.<\/p>\n<p>Anonymous sources are bad. Anonymous sources are a clue that what follows may be agenda driven and unreliable and should not be taken too seriously. Or so a &#8220;senior federal official&#8221; has told me.<\/p>\n<p>[1] In 2017, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/06\/02\/public-editor\/liz-spayd-final-public-editor-column.html?action=click&amp;contentCollection=opinion&amp;module=NextInCollection&amp;region=Footer&amp;pgtype=article&amp;version=column&amp;rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fthe-public-editor\">New York Times eliminated its Public Editor position<\/a> intended to listen to their customers and to hold staff accountable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How the New York Times turned a college student intern into a &#8220;federal analyst&#8221;, &#8220;senior adviser&#8221; and host of other titles, in a single front page news story. Title inflation makes a news report more persuasive through use of an &#8220;appeal to authority&#8221;. Citing an anonymous college student intern does not sound as good as citing an anonymous &#8220;senior adviser&#8221;.  Unfortunately, the news media frequently uses both title inflation and anonymous sources to persuade you to adopt their agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other","category-fake-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}