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When I read this, I contributed the following comment (slightly
edited):
When I went to write about this for the blog today, I found
that the story had been substantively re-written, including the headline.* The article
now begins like this:
Yesterday's lead paragraph, with its flat claim that the FCC's
proposal is "aimed at guaranteeing an open Internet," has been changed to a
kind of "Well, 'net neutrality' means different things to different people"
plaint. This at least implicitly recognizes
that the FCC's claim that it's working for net neutrality is not accepted by
everyone. "Moving Ahead on Net Neutrality" also has significantly different
implications than "Opening Net Neutrality Rules for Debate."
Yesterday (May 15th), the New York Times
published a story by Edward Wyatt on the FCC's "net neutrality" decision. Here are the first two paragraphs of the story,
and what I believe was the headline (See note below), as it appeared on
the NYT web site yesterday:
F.C.C. Votes to Move Ahead on Net Neutrality Plan
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 Thursday to move forward with a set of proposed rules aimed at guaranteeing an open Internet, prohibiting high-speed Internet service providers from blocking or discriminating against legal content flowing through their pipes.
While the rules are meant to prevent Internet providers from knowingly slowing data, they would allow content providers to pay for a guaranteed fast lane of service. Some opponents of the plan, those considered net neutrality purists, argue that allowing some content to be sent along a fast lane would essentially discriminate against other content.
This story is published in a seriously deceptive way. The headline and the first paragraph make it sound like the decision reinforces openness and equality, with language about "guaranteeing an open Internet, prohibiting high-speed Internet service providers from blocking or discriminating against legal content." Only when you read the second paragraph, after the introductory "while"--which actually means "in contradiction with what we just implied"--does the reader learn that the decision will "allow content providers to pay for a guaranteed fast lane of service," which means precisely that everyone else will be relegated to a slower lane, creating, ipso facto, "discriminat[ion] against legal content"! The headline could and should have read: "FCC Votes to Allow Internet Content Discrimination"! Why did the NYT feel the need to present the case so misleadingly?
F.C.C. Backs Opening Net Neutrality Rules for Debate
WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators appear to share one view about so-called net neutrality: It is a good thing.
But defining net neutrality? That is where things get messy.
On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to open for public debate new rules meant to guarantee an open Internet. Before the plan becomes final, though, the chairman of the commission, Tom Wheeler, will need to convince his colleagues and an array of powerful lobbying groups that the plan follows the principle of net neutrality, the idea that all content running through the Internet's pipes is treated equally.
While the rules are meant to prevent Internet providers from knowingly slowing data, they would allow content providers to pay for a guaranteed fast lane of service. Some opponents of the plan, those considered net neutrality purists, argue that allowing some content to be sent along a fast lane would essentially discriminate against other content.
Still, the article maintains the misleading and contradictory
sentence that now begins the fourth paragraph.
This sentence, beginning with "While the rules," contains, in its first
clause, an assertion about what the rules "are meant" to do--prevent some data from being provided
more slowly--that is proved false by the second clause, which states that the
rules allow some data to be provided
more quickly for a fee. The article then goes on to treat the idea that
allowing paid fast lanes on the internet means actual discrimination in content
delivery as if that idea were a peculiar conceit of net neutrality "purists."
This is another example of the construction of a false
ambiguity that complexifies a clear distinction--an ambiguity that pretends the
point of the FCC's proposed rules may not be what it obviously is. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, former cable
industry lobbyist, is trying to approve a system of differential speeds of
content delivery on the internet in order to provide cable and telecom companies
with a new profit stream. That is the opposite of net neutrality. There's no
ambiguity or debate or mystery about this.
Wheeler's claim--namely, that such a system is "meant" to "guarantee
an open internet" and preserve net neutrality--is not of equal credibility with the claim that the system he proposes
will undermine net neutrality. The attempt to present these as equally
compelling claims is an egregious example of the journalistic tactic of constructing
a false equivalence in order to avoid identifying the weakness and mendacity of
positions promoted by those who are powerful and respected.
You know, we must consider the idea that Republican Voter ID
laws are "meant" to preserve the integrity of the vote as equally credible as the
idea that they are meant to reduce voter turnout by disfavored populations.
I'd also ask: Should not the NYT acknowledge its re-write of
the story? The paper very carefully acknowledges one edit: a change in the
number of protesters cited in the article. But it gives no hint of the much
more substantial re-write from the "earlier version," which changed
the lede significantly.
All the news we print
in fits.
Note
*Thus my uncertainty about the headline. The original story
has been preserved on local news
sites that picked up the NYT feed yesterday; some have the headline: "FCC votes
to pursue net neutrality rules." I cannot remember specifically, but the
headline strongly suggested that the FCC had ratified net neutrality, as my
comment to the NYT implies. See also the
post on this at DailyKos.
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