>> refuse to publish their articles for a corporation with such an "immoral" advertising department,

>> GGP was basically pushing "we could destroy the village in order to save it" logic."

Why do I feel any criticism of reporters reads that way to you? I don't think they want to destroy reporters/the 4th estate at all it seems like what they want is the content creators to try and work for "moral" people and use the power they have as content creators to do so. This is not hugely simple and i agree with you on that. The false dichotomy your pushing into it is that any change which is hard is equivalent to destruction, or that any change that is fought for is someone going to "war" with the 4th estate.

The 4th estate existed before they rebuilt their village on sand. We would rather a solid foundation over them complaining about the sand they built the village on, while also claiming that attempts at change are just not feasible. Complaining about a thing and then saying but its okay as long as i get mine is exactly the thing about it seeming hollow.

>> Those are things you need for a functioning forth estate. Some people used to think that blogs (e.g. sites that lack the things you listed) could replace newspapers, but they were wrong.

I mean the fourth estate is not defined as being any individual reporter or brand. So this is a claim on your part that no reporter should lose or leave or protest their job and no paper should ever go defunct if we have a functioning fourth estate... I don't even really know how to address this claim, but it seems like its probably not what you mean? The point of adding those two things was to draw attention to the incentives of the individuals.

As for blogs, they also generally have trackers, the reason they couldn't replace newspapers was not the lack of trackers on them and people don't go to the new york times to see the ads.

It really feels like your painting a picture of this all or nothing situation with no individuals in it. while this person

> I don't mind paying a small subscription but let me choose to deny your advertisers information on how I consume your content.

seems to want to pay reporters instead of being tracked and this other one

> They could refuse to publish their articles for a corporation with such an "immoral" advertising department, but they don't, because they aren't genuine in their beliefs.

seems to be a "stop claiming your so good please" situation as opposed to the "destroy them all muhhaha" thing your claiming.

> niche issue, few strident people, peanut gallery, pyrrhic war, low-reach niche publication, some random internet commenter.

Common now, really? we are good enough for them to write a bunch of articles about our issue just not good enough to actually try and do anything? And we can't point out the hollowness of that position?

I guess I'm sorry I responded, I felt your original comment was informative but of two side channels that weren't really a response to the content of the comment you where responding to. That is to say while both things you stated in your OP where true neither seems to contradict the idea that the NYT wants it both ways, they actually seem to explain the method by which they achieve having it both ways. I hoped we could get to a better shared understanding of the positions but now I feel like your seeing my and the others arguments as "burn it to the ground" as opposed to "Its nice that they started talking about it being bad a little more frequently, it would be nicer if they chose not to do it, or at least tried to support some alternatives".