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0 pointsremarkEon5y ago0 comments

That Alexander started the substack under his real name only after leaving his job is a pretty big hint that it wasn’t about “demand[ing] that journalists pretend that his identity is secret”.

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tptacek5y ago· 2 in thread

I don't want to guess at how this connects to the question I asked, so can you be more specific about what you think it was Alexander was asking of the New York Times? I think he was asking them not to disclose his identity. Do you think he was asking for something else?

remarkEonOP5y ago

You're moving the goal posts here, pretty significantly. He didn't want them to disclose his identity, because he didn't want his patients to see his name blasted out in major media as that could potentially impact their care. This seems entirely reasonable, and well within the range of requests that NYT grants to many subjects of their articles. You can think it's unreasonable, because if you are trying to connect SSC to an IRL name you could find it, and that's fine. I don't, because I think Alexander should've been given the exact same deference NYT offers others.

tptacek5y ago

I think we're going around in circles. Because Alexander's identity was not in fact private, I don't care why Alexander wanted the NYT to keep it out of the story, nor do I think there is any real-world norm obligating them to do so.

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