The Daily Stoic was created by Ryan Holiday. I believe that he really did a lot to encourage current popularity for Stoicism.

But it is interesting to note that he seems to have gotten into Stoic philosophy to make up for the sins that he committed as a digital marketer. Of his books, his expose on social media and digital marketing, https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulato..., is my favorite.

It is ironic because of the article itself - Musk buying Twitter...

Recommended reading "Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator" https://www.amazon.ca/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...

You are not just better at noticing it. It really is more slanted.

Journalism 20-30 years ago was mostly funded on a subscription model. In this model they work hard to maintain their reputation, so that people will trust them as an accurate source of news.

Journalism today is mostly funded per click. Which means that the most important thing is a headline that grabs people's attention and causes them to click. The incentive is for the most outrageous and attention grabbing headline possible. With no incentive for being accurate - by the time you realize that the article is junk they've been paid and are looking for another sucker.

If you're interested in a book length exposition of how this change in dynamics has changed the news landscape, I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulato.... The trends that it discusses have played out for another decade since it was written, but played out along the direction that it described.

You speak of HN as if HN was a single individual with a unified mind.

My opinions are reasonably consistent. However if you try to draw a consistent picture out of a mix of what I say and what others say, you will fail horribly. Sure, I'm happy to point you to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE or https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulato... to give other viewpoints on how laying everything out as a debate between two sides poisons our society. But I wouldn't expect most of HN to be on board with the strength of my views.

I also don't agree with your characterization of the "HN community". This site usually doesn't report on the coverage of the right wing press. When it does, most commentators seem to lean towards the outlook described in https://www.wired.com/story/political-education-silicon-vall.... Admittedly with outspoken exceptions.

As for me personally, I am a libertarian atheist whose explicit goal is to be right..eventually. In that end I care deeply that my impressions reflect reality, particularly for people that I disagree with. I am painfully aware that natural cognitive biases will lead it to be comfortable for me to accept an echo chamber. I care about the misrepresentation not because I respect Christianity - I don't - but because I care that my thinking correctly represents Christians.

yes precisely! i'm sure Facebook's methods are very susceptible to these types of attacks. Hopefully they still are in 6 years and we can get jobs fixing this for them lol.

I also really recommend this book https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulato...

The type of attack is a lot more oldschool but nonetheless, pretty effective.

I read this and my first instinct was "what PR team pitched this story?"

Maybe none. But one way the times could re establish credibility with me is to be transparent about how much the writer engaged with pr reps or communications teams in each story. It doesn't have to be exhaustive.

By the way- Part of my journey to this level of skepticism was "Trust me, I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulato...

>Gawker fucked up a lot. But our media landscape is worse off without it.

I disagree that we're clearly worse off. For a good explanation on why, this is a pretty good read:

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulato...

The thesis, for those less interested in buying the book, is that when we embraced blogs like Gawker and Buzzfeed as a source of news content, the quality of our news decreased drastically.

You went from sort of the New York Times subscription-based model, where people are subscribed already and your journalists can focus on the quality of your content, back to the days of "EXTRA! Read all about it," where everyone is just trying to be heard over the thousands of other available blogs.

So our headlines became clickbait, content became lies, and because it's so pervasive, there is little to no accountability.

The hogan case is important because it adds accountability.

Standard marketing BS these days [0]. Announce the coming announcement for the pre-ordering of an unreleased product. A fake news event to generate the exact press they're getting.

I wouldn't be surprised if they announce the price before that timer goes away, just to get another round of press.

[0] Stuff like this is outlined in "Trust Me, I'm Lying" - http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...

> I mean, seriously, what on earth are you addressing here? Who are you talking to?

For anyone that's equally confused, I highly recommend reading the book "Trust Me, I'm Lying": http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...

What's happening right now isn't entirely intuitive, so it's understandable to be a bit lost, but what the parent is talking about is a serious, legitimate issue.

Have any of you read the book: Trust Me I'm Lying (http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...)? I have not, but have had many discussions with friends who have read it. It's my understanding that the premise of the book is that mainstream media isn't as relevant as they use to be due to the rise of blogs; mainstream media picks up stories from a lot of blogs. Many of these stories are planted there by media manipulators to drum up controversy and thus increase sales.

Admittedly, I don't have evidence to suggest this, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was just a publicity stunt.

Edit: I'm not claiming the hack was a publicity stunt, I'm claiming that I wouldn't be surprised if the cancelation of the movie was a publicity stunt.

Awesome. Reminds me of "Trust Me, I'm Lying". I don't recommend using any of the techniques in the book, but if you're interested in media, the book provides a unique view into the guts of the system.

http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...

Ever read this?

This book is full of examples of shocking things bloggers/journalists do: http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...

Why is it that something seems to be much appreciated by the community, but no journalist seems interested?

Hard to say. Bloggers are usually always hungry for content, but the popular blogs are harder to crack, as they get enough eyeballs that people compete to get on their sites. Remember that they're ultimately eyeing everything through a lens of "What is going to get me the most ad impressions and generate me the most revenue"?

Getting press coverage isn't necessarily as simple as "get on the front page of HN, get mentioned by $FOO publication". The field of PR is a big area, with a lot of accumulated idioms, patterns, experts, relationships, etc.

Should I continue writing emails to these people until they either block me or reply?

I would. What do you have to lose? Don't be annoying or whiny or turn into a stalker, of course. But there's a lot to be said for persistence.

Or should I skip tech journalists and try to find another way to make service visible to more people?

One thing I'm a big fan of, is the work of Ryan Holiday, author of Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of A Media Manipulator[1]. You might also find some value in a fairly basic book on PR like The New Rules of Marketing and PR[2] or some of the "Guerilla Marketing" stuff by Jay Conrad Levinson[3].

Also, if it's really important to you to get coverage, hiring a PR person isn't always a bad idea. I know there's been a lot of negative stuff said on HN lately about PR agencies and startups, but part of the "secret sauce" is the pre-existing relationships these guys have with journalists. It may or may not be fair, but a good PR person can help you get coverage that would be hard to generate organically. If you're even slightly interested, I know a good PR guy who might be able/willing to help. Shoot me an email and I can arrange an introduction.

One final thought, is to try using a press release submission service like PRWeb[4] or PRNewsWire[5]. It will cost you a little bit of money, but it's an option to get some attention. Note that you won't get TechCrunch / Gizmodo type coverage out of this (well, probably not anyway), but your thing should at least wind up listed in Google News.

There's also a lot of interesting PR related advice on Quora. Check out this question[6] and some of the "similar questions" links around it.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...

[2]: http://www.amazon.com/New-Rules-Marketing-PR-Applications/dp...

[3]: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3D...

[4]: http://www.prweb.com/

[5]: http://www.prnewswire.com/

[6]: http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-blogs-and-sites-a-new-sta...

You guys realize, all this shit (all if it, Adria, the "post-mortem" blog posts, etc), is just a land grab for page views right?

http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...

The funny thing is how amazingly well this marketing works, especially in the era of blogs.

I recently bought http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator..., which talks about the fake news the author manufactures to sell his clients' products.

I recently read the book: "Trust Me, I'm Lying" which talks about how these types of blog posts. Now it's so obvious when I see this kind of stuff.

Here's the book: http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...

For more information on how the media is manipulated in the 21st century, check out Ryan Holiday's book: http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...