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That could be seen as false equivocation of positions. The FDA is an organization that needs to broadcast signals to nearly every level of society about certain

That could be seen as false equivocation of positions. The FDA is an organization that needs to broadcast signals to nearly every level of society about certain products. All the way from corporate RnD divisions to consumers. Not being concise, diligent, and stringent on what messages get sent out could have extremely negative effects. Letting news organizations pander to people's fears or general ignorance is a recipe for disaster. I am not even sure why this needs to be explained. I mean, actually at this point on HN I do know why, it's people being disingenuous. Seriously how is this non-sense being upvoted? From the article: >including ones from major outlets such as Fox News Seriously, are we going to just sit here and pretend why this was done? An organization hell bent on bashing largely agreed upon scientific information is being denied the ability to spin information from an organization dedicated to the scientific understanding and safety of products. The FDA is basically refusing to play the game of yellow journalism and rightly so. Spare me the patronizing pathetic attempts at an apology, and excuse me for calling out bullshit from scientific american. Shame on them. And shame on HN for upvoting this.

mcguire 10y ago
So you are saying that the FDA is never wrong and that its activities need no public oversight? I can see no other reason for allowing them uncontested access to spin their "signals". If they were interested in "refusing to play the game of yellow journalism" they would not pre-announce their activities at all. And are you really saying that Scientific American is "an organization hell bent on bashing largely agreed upon scientific information"?
- popmystack 10y ago
  No where did I say the FDA "is never wrong and that its activities need no public oversight." No part of my statement could even be misconstrued that way. But thanks for being disingenuous! The FDA gets _true_ oversight from the thousands and thousands of scientist who work within the organization, who work outside the organization, and other organizations who have vested interests in "trashing" certain findings and approvals by the FDA. It sounds like you don't know how the FDA is generally set up so it would do you well to look into it. It's not exactly private. The FDA again, doesn't want to play the game of yellow journalism. Why is this confusing? The following makes absolutely no sense, by the way. From your own post: "they would not pre-announce their activities at all." Please do elaborate how this somehow negates their motivations for not wanting the press to get out of hand and send false signals to the public. You can't just provide one little quip and expect that to unravel all their motivations. Again, I'm really struggling to see how this is confusing to anyone who has worked with anything remotely public, or even at a big corporation! And no, I am not sure how a direct quote about Fox News and a sentence that follows the direct quote somehow gets misconstrued as me talking about "Scientific American." _However_, Scientific American has been known (especially over the last couple of years), to engage in generally click baity, irrefutably unscientific publications. Just like it is doing here.
  - comex 10y ago
    I can understand the argument that stonewalling outright hostile news organizations like Fox News is justified. I don't know whether I agree with it, but I can understand it. But that is essentially orthogonal to the issue of whether embargoes should be "close-hold", in those cases where the FDA does trust a reporter enough to grant them early access. After all, if the reporter merely wants to cast aspersions and FUD, a close-hold embargo doesn't really prevent them from doing so; they can probably come up with it on their own, or cite preexisting criticism related to the subject (regardless of how well it matches up with the exact announcement at hand). It is only if they want to get informed, on-topic reactions from sources with relevant knowledge and experience that the embargo gets in the way. Indeed, such an embargo may all but force even well-meaning journalists to include misleading or useless "context" - decreasing the accuracy of the article - just to provide some slight semblance of impartiality, as in this example from the Scientific American article: > CBS plunked down an out-of-context quotation from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, probably in hopes that readers wouldn't notice that it was two months old. Now, I suppose it's possible that well-meaning journalists end up too credulously repeating the statements of sources with, as you say, vested interests in bashing the FDA. I suppose hamstringing them from even talking to those sources, along with all others, could hypothetically increase the overall accuracy of the article. But let's be real. What you end up with is essentially a series of glorified press releases. Press releases have their place: to inform the public of a particular organization's viewpoint. True, the FDA is an expert organization and chances are its viewpoints are typically reasonable - valid - plausible. Indeed, they're almost certainly more studied and thorough than a quick reaction from any other source. But even so, valid is not the same as right, and for issues as contentious as the ones the FDA often ends up having to deal with, there is rarely any single right viewpoint. Thus citing a range of sources, rather than providing the public with any organization's viewpoint alone, is the only responsible thing to do. That is not yellow journalism: it is the essence of journalism. Seriously: do you really think - > Even after he updated his piece later in the day to get some outside comments, there was little hint of how controversial the new rules were. Members of the tobacco industry were generally unhappy with increased federal regulation of their business, while antitobacco advocates tended to argue that the new regulations were far too weak and took way too long to promulgate. And there was no mention, in Felberbaum's article, at least, that the agency had tried to regulate e-cigarettes several years earlier but was slapped down with a stinging rebuke from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia - that omitting this context is an improvement?

mcguire 10y ago

So you are saying that the FDA is never wrong and that its activities need no public oversight? I can see no other reason for allowing them uncontested access to spin their "signals". If they were interested in "refusing to play the game of yellow journalism" they would not pre-announce their activities at all. And are you really saying that Scientific American is "an organization hell bent on bashing largely agreed upon scientific information"?

popmystack 10y ago
No where did I say the FDA "is never wrong and that its activities need no public oversight." No part of my statement could even be misconstrued that way. But thanks for being disingenuous! The FDA gets _true_ oversight from the thousands and thousands of scientist who work within the organization, who work outside the organization, and other organizations who have vested interests in "trashing" certain findings and approvals by the FDA. It sounds like you don't know how the FDA is generally set up so it would do you well to look into it. It's not exactly private. The FDA again, doesn't want to play the game of yellow journalism. Why is this confusing? The following makes absolutely no sense, by the way. From your own post: "they would not pre-announce their activities at all." Please do elaborate how this somehow negates their motivations for not wanting the press to get out of hand and send false signals to the public. You can't just provide one little quip and expect that to unravel all their motivations. Again, I'm really struggling to see how this is confusing to anyone who has worked with anything remotely public, or even at a big corporation! And no, I am not sure how a direct quote about Fox News and a sentence that follows the direct quote somehow gets misconstrued as me talking about "Scientific American." _However_, Scientific American has been known (especially over the last couple of years), to engage in generally click baity, irrefutably unscientific publications. Just like it is doing here.
- comex 10y ago
  I can understand the argument that stonewalling outright hostile news organizations like Fox News is justified. I don't know whether I agree with it, but I can understand it. But that is essentially orthogonal to the issue of whether embargoes should be "close-hold", in those cases where the FDA does trust a reporter enough to grant them early access. After all, if the reporter merely wants to cast aspersions and FUD, a close-hold embargo doesn't really prevent them from doing so; they can probably come up with it on their own, or cite preexisting criticism related to the subject (regardless of how well it matches up with the exact announcement at hand). It is only if they want to get informed, on-topic reactions from sources with relevant knowledge and experience that the embargo gets in the way. Indeed, such an embargo may all but force even well-meaning journalists to include misleading or useless "context" - decreasing the accuracy of the article - just to provide some slight semblance of impartiality, as in this example from the Scientific American article: > CBS plunked down an out-of-context quotation from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, probably in hopes that readers wouldn't notice that it was two months old. Now, I suppose it's possible that well-meaning journalists end up too credulously repeating the statements of sources with, as you say, vested interests in bashing the FDA. I suppose hamstringing them from even talking to those sources, along with all others, could hypothetically increase the overall accuracy of the article. But let's be real. What you end up with is essentially a series of glorified press releases. Press releases have their place: to inform the public of a particular organization's viewpoint. True, the FDA is an expert organization and chances are its viewpoints are typically reasonable - valid - plausible. Indeed, they're almost certainly more studied and thorough than a quick reaction from any other source. But even so, valid is not the same as right, and for issues as contentious as the ones the FDA often ends up having to deal with, there is rarely any single right viewpoint. Thus citing a range of sources, rather than providing the public with any organization's viewpoint alone, is the only responsible thing to do. That is not yellow journalism: it is the essence of journalism. Seriously: do you really think - > Even after he updated his piece later in the day to get some outside comments, there was little hint of how controversial the new rules were. Members of the tobacco industry were generally unhappy with increased federal regulation of their business, while antitobacco advocates tended to argue that the new regulations were far too weak and took way too long to promulgate. And there was no mention, in Felberbaum's article, at least, that the agency had tried to regulate e-cigarettes several years earlier but was slapped down with a stinging rebuke from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia - that omitting this context is an improvement?