zlacker

Fun fact: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/09/security-update/ was published at 16:42:44. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/technology/facebook-hack-... was published at 16:45:41. NYT writes fast :)

>>testpl+(OP)
In the journalism world, pre-written articles are apparently quite common. I assume they had a boilerplate already for the next Facebook controversy, and just wrote 2-3 opening paragraphs that were relevant for this one.

CNN many years ago accidentally left some of their pre-written obituaries for (living) world figures publically accessible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premature_obituaries#T...

>>testpl+(OP)
It's possible they emailed the release out before it was published on the web, I suppose. It would make sense, as I imagine news outlets have follow up questions.

>>testpl+(OP)
...and posted on HN ~16:47

>>testpl+(OP)
It's also possible a bunch of them got logged out this morning, new something was up, and started fleshing out their prewritten template with details like the date and symptoms.

I suspected there was a breach of some sort, when my tokens expired in three places simultaniously, this morning. First thing I did was search google news, nothing had been written yet. I wasnt sure they would ever announce it, probably depends on the scale.

>>laken+U
The FB press release was probably shared early with the agreement it would be embargoed by the media until FB made it official.

It's not uncommon. It's how you build "friendly" relationships with the media. I scratch your back, you scratch mine.

>>testpl+(OP)
> “We’re taking it really seriously,” Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, said in a conference call with reporters. “We have a major security effort at the company that hardens all of our surfaces.” He added: “I’m glad we found this. But it definitely is an issue that this happened in the first place.”

There was a conference call with reporters about the subject, so the press release public release was not the first the NYT knew about it. They likely had an embargo agreement.

>>testpl+(OP)
Or it was the other way round, they learned of the issue, asked for comment, accelerating the news release.

>>laken+U
This is probably not at all what happened. Things get heard and articles get quickly written. In this case it can even be the company spreading the news to key media companies in order to control the spreading of the news.

>>testpl+(OP)
If the NY Times doesn't have Facebook corporate and PR infiltrated, then they aren't doing their job.

>>laken+U
In the journalism world, pre-written articles are apparently quite common.

Actually, not "common" at all.

Obituaries for famous people are often done in advance, since everyone dies. It used to be one of the things that young journalists/interns did to cut their teeth.

But not every company has a massive security breach, so this was not pre-written.

It's not uncommon for big companies to fax (yes, fax) bad news to news organizations a few hours or days before posting it on their own web sites.

In the past, there would be embargoes on the information, but in the case of bad news, those are routinely ignored.

>>testpl+(OP)
The press release was almost certainly sent to the NYT in advance of its release, but embargoed.

Source: I spent years at a national PR agency

>>testpl+(OP)
There's something ironic about NYT getting a lot of its traffic these days by writing recaps of Facebook news.

>>testpl+(OP)
"NYT writes fast :)"

Facebook wrote it. They called their friend at NYT and handed over the article - then mentioned they would be sharing it with other outlets later. [just my guess].

>>ransom+Lf
Pre-disclosing news to publications is a standard affair in business and politics. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

>>awad+Ij
I'm also surprised that many supposedly educated people on HackerNews don't seem to know these things.

Noam Chomsky wrote Manufacturing Consent decades ago.

Read, you fools!

>>jdminh+B4
I very very much doubt the NYT would have agreed to an embargo on a story like this. It's a major news story, not the launch of a new car.

>>dkrich+kb
* Citation needed

>>testpl+(OP)
PR Teams will work with major news sources on the stories in advance of the announcement, in exchange for having an input on the final story.

>>Angost+Cn
Since you're just getting downvoted, I may as well say that as a member of the press it isn't uncommon to see embargoes on stuff like this. They don't say a week out "hey we've got a huge security announcement" but they do say "we have something coming out this afternoon and we're doing a briefing half an hour before if you agree not to publish before we go public."

It's often in the interest of the reporter to agree to stuff like this since publishing security issues ahead of time can have serious negative consequences.

>>ransom+Lf
That's a serious ethical accusation to make against a journalist. Make it if you have evidence, but not reasoning from first principles.

>>nemtar+Fk
It's actually the 30th anniversary. Also, Herman wrote half the book!

>>teagee+D1
Posting a link to HN takes 10 seconds. Writing a news article doens't.

>>devind+Gy
This is in response to a dead reply on this chain. Unless you are in Congress it is illegal to trade on material non public information. So if a reporter traded on info in an embargoed press release they could be prosecuted for insider trading.

>>idlewo+oR
They wrote it in 3 minutes, are you seriously saying first principles are not sufficient here?

>>reaper+F8
Welp, this sounds like a pretty bad practice. If there's one thing that journalists can count on, it's that famous companies are going to have a data breach.

You should probably get on that.

>>devind+Gy
I hadn't considered an 30 minute embargo, thanks for setting me straight on that (also an ex member of the press, but from the days when things didn't move quite so fast)

>>ethanw+Z21
I am. Much more plausible is an embargoed story.