"We never cosplayed as journalists"

[I forgot my password]

@LinusTech, you said "we never cosplayed as journalists" on the most recent WAN Show...

 

However in the Labs announcement video from 3 yrs ago, you said:

 

"The vision for this Lab is pretty simple. In the time I've been doing this job, tech journalism has suffered blow after blow after blow...That ends now."

 

On a WAN Show weeks after, you said:

 

"There's just not a lot of tech journalism left so we want to try to resurrect that as LTT Labs."

 

Can it be argued that the 2 statements above mean that you did indeed claim, at the very least, part of LMG to be journalists? And since you are still working on the Labs, does that mean you are now still journalists and therefore should be held to such standard?

 

(Btw please don't give up on the Labs even tho I may come off as a bit harsh here, I just want to get the Labs and that vision of LTT as you promised)

 

I also want to know when you started actually doing the prep work for the Labs (like buying the first building and other stuff that happened before you wrote the script for the Labs announcement video), I've literally relistened to almost all WAN Shows from Jan 2021 to Mar 2023 and still don't know the answer lol

[CasualExtremist]

30 minutes ago, I forgot my password said:

@LinusTech, you said "we never cosplayed as journalists" on the most recent WAN Show...

I forget who the original author of the sentiment is, nor the exact quote, but it was something to the line of:

 

"If you are engaged in a conversation where you are questioning someone and/or they are defending their position, absolutes (never, always, etc.) are typically used in some form of lie."

 

Maybe accidental lying if any, but still fascinated by the application here.

[iovey]

I think it can be argued you're taking an offhand comment made 3 hours into a stream a little too seriously

[Holmes108]

8 hours ago, iovey said:

I think it can be argued you're taking an offhand comment made 3 hours into a stream a little too seriously

 

This, first and foremost. 

 

I'd also argue that outside of the labs, they never have claimed to be journalists, so it was perfectly accurate for the channel so far. But yeah, I do expect they are going to take the labs side of the business super seriously. But as far as I know, it's still somewhat a WIP.

[I forgot my password]

On 3/27/2025 at 3:35 AM, iovey said:

I think it can be argued you're taking an offhand comment made 3 hours into a stream a little too seriously

Absolutely. I think only scripted videos should be taken seriously.

 

Therefore according to the scripted Labs announcement video, if I understand it correctly, Linus and his team should follow the standard of journalism if he were to stop the death of tech journalism.

 

...

 

I relistened to that WAN Show where he addressed Gamers Nexus misrepresenting him and LMG today, I realized he said a similar thing to that "offhand comment made 3 hours into a stream" in his email to Steve:

 

"We do our best around here to do what we believe is right, and to stand up for the consumer. That leads to us doing journalist-ey things sometimes.. and I understand basic journalistic principles, but I’m not a journalist and I have never claimed to be."

 

I feel "we never cosplayed as journalist" is a bit of a far cry from that initial statement of wanting to try to resurrect tech journalism as LTT Labs, and I don't recall hearing any shift of that goal of the Labs anywhere, unlike the decision to not make Floatplane open source for example.

[GarlicDeliverySystem]

23 minutes ago, I forgot my password said:

Therefore according to the scripted Labs announcement video, if I understand it correctly, Linus and his team should follow the standard of journalism if he were to stop the death of tech journalism.

I think this is a logical fallacy here. Setting out the goal to "try to resurrect tech journalism with Labs" does not mean that they now want to or even need to follow the standards of journalism, or by implication "be journalists" for everything they do.

 

It only means that they are trying to resurrect tech journalism as a genre/franchise/whatever, by providing labs. And the mission statement for labs, last time I checked, was to do independent testing and verify manufacturers' technical claims.

A transformation of the LTT writing team to full journalism, especially investigative ones, was not implied imho.

 

It might be that you think that this would be needed in order to resurrect tech journalism, but that is a different debate.

[DeerDK]

35 minutes ago, I forgot my password said:

Absolutely. I think only scripted videos should be taken seriously.

 

Therefore according to the scripted Labs announcement video, if I understand it correctly, Linus and his team should follow the standard of journalism if he were to stop the death of tech journalism.

 

...

 

I relistened to that WAN Show where he addressed Gamers Nexus misrepresenting him and LMG today, I realized he said a similar thing to that "offhand comment made 3 hours into a stream" in his email to Steve:

 

"We do our best around here to do what we believe is right, and to stand up for the consumer. That leads to us doing journalist-ey things sometimes.. and I understand basic journalistic principles, but I’m not a journalist and I have never claimed to be."

 

I feel it's a bit of a far cry from that initial statement of wanting to try to resurrect tech journalism as LTT Labs, and I don't recall hearing any shift of that goal of the Labs anywhere, unlike the decision to not make Floatplane open source for example.

I think it's a bit of a leap to go from "I want to strengthen tech journalism, or at least stop the decline caused by the closure of outlets" to interpret it as "I, Linus Sebastian, am a journalist". 

He operates in tech media, true, and stated that he wants to facilitate tech journalism, but has he ever styled himself as a journalist? You can be a specialist within a field providing data, but that doesn't translate into fullblown journalism? 

 

The LMG should definitely be held to some sort of journalistic accountability, and I think they are, given the flak they catch when they mess up, but you seem to insist on Linus himself being a journalist, also when he is clearly just doing a host-role on a podcast, in other words, talking off the top of hish head and not publicizing reviewed/edited articles/videos. 

 

5 minutes ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

I think this is a logical fallacy here. Setting out the goal to "try to resurrect tech journalism with Labs" does not mean that they now want to or even need to follow the standards of journalism, or by implication "be journalists" for everything they do.

 

It only means that they are trying to resurrect tech journalism as a genre/franchise/whatever, by providing labs. And the mission statement for labs, last time I checked, was to do independent testing and verify manufacturers' technical claims.

A transformation of the LTT writing team to full journalism, especially investigative ones, was not implied imho.

 

It might be that you think that this would be needed in order to resurrect tech journalism, but that is a different debate.

Heck, if I were a millionaire I could invest in tech media with the declared goal of strengthening independent reviews, and that would not automatically turn ME into a journalist 

[I forgot my password]

3 minutes ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

A transformation of the LTT writing team to full journalism, especially investigative ones, was not implied imho.

 

It might be that you think that this would be needed in order to resurrect tech journalism, but that is a different debate.

Fair enough. I latch onto that because Linus claimed the Labs would "radically change the face of Linus Tech Tips", and indeed data and sometimes even personnel from the Labs are now used in both LTT and ShortCircuit. I feel like the Labs is never intented to be a separate thing from the channels of LMG (although Linus did mention a plan of making multiple separate channels for the Labs).

[DeerDK]

11 minutes ago, I forgot my password said:

Fair enough. I latch onto that because Linus claimed the Labs would "radically change the face of Linus Tech Tips", and indeed data and sometimes even personnel from the Labs are now used in both LTT and ShortCircuit. I feel like the Labs is never intented to be a separate thing from the channels of LMG (although Linus did mention a plan of making multiple separate channels for the Labs).

If a lifestyle magazine starts a tech review section, does that elevate the rest of the magazine to the new standard? 

[I forgot my password]

18 hours ago, DeerDK said:

If a lifestyle magazine starts a tech review section, does that elevate the rest of the magazine to the new standard? 

This imo is comparable to the plan to have multiple separate Labs channels, which has not been materialized except for PSU Circuit, not to the appearance of Labs data/personnel in LTT/ShortCircuit videos. I think the latter can be confusing, especially when the hosts keep missing key features of the product in the "unboxing/first impression" portion of ShortCircuit from time to time. The difference in the amount of care put into the same video/channel is not exactly small. I think this pollutes Labs' effort to strengthen tech journalism.

 

20 hours ago, DeerDK said:

I think it's a bit of a leap to go from "I want to strengthen tech journalism, or at least stop the decline caused by the closure of outlets" to interpret it as "I, Linus Sebastian, am a journalist".

Okay I indeed messed up and shouldn't have quoted Linus' letter to Steve. Maybe that statement "We never cosplayed as journalists" was also just him misremembering the exact wording and he only meant he didn't.

 

But I still maintain that LMG in general should be held to journalistic standard. I am not saying that the community in general isn't holding LMG to that, just that I feel like Linus is trying pursuade us that we shouldn't, which I am against because I think it does not help with the goal that past Linus had in mind and promoted to the community.

[GarlicDeliverySystem]

26 minutes ago, I forgot my password said:

But I still maintain that LMG in general should be held to journalistic standard. I am not saying that the community in general isn't holding LMG to that, just that I feel like Linus is trying pursuade us that we shouldn't, which I am against because I think it does not help with the goal that past Linus had in mind and promoted to the community.

That is of course a valid opinion. 

I would argue though, that you should not try to base or justify opinions (or represent them as facts) by analyzing every statement and looking for those one or two lines where they made claims going into that direction. In other words, don't base whether certain standards are broadly applicable to them (LTT organization) and their work (i.e. all videos) on a single video or even just single line in a video. 

 

If you want to make a good argument, in my opinion you would need to look at the role of their content in the wider media landscape, how their content is usually received (not just individual pieces, but the stuff as a whole) and how they market themselves, the tone of videos etc. What type of outreach do they have, influence, effect and what could be the negative effects of systematically not adhering to journalistic standards. I am pretty sure that proper journalist associations or similar entity would have some criteria worked out already.

 

[ToboRobot]

How dare youtubers not adhere to the same standards as the New York Times!!!

[DeerDK]

2 hours ago, I forgot my password said:

But I still maintain that LMG in general should be held to journalistic standard.

So do I, I even said so, so no need to debate that part.

 

2 hours ago, I forgot my password said:

....

 

But I still maintain that LMG in general should be held to journalistic standard. I am not saying that the community in general isn't holding LMG to that, just that I feel like Linus is trying pursuade us that we shouldn't, which I am against because I think it does not help with the goal that past Linus had in mind and promoted to the community.

The difference is, that Steve DID fashion himself as a journalist (although there have been some changes), and did investigative pieces where journalistic formalities plays a bigger part.

Simply getting data wrong is less critical, apart from ruining one's brand and reputation if one keep doing it.

But you seem to want to hold Linus personally to the journalistic standard in every thing he does, not just the publicized videos and articles that IMO can be expected to be held to this standard. An written article or edited video can be fact checked and, well, been run by an editor. What is said as reaction during a live podcast, less so. 

But pray tell, what specific journalistic responsibilities do you feel he is trying to worm out of? Especially in the context.

 

And no, I don't find a conflicting statment in "im investing in this to strengthen tech journalism" and "im not a journalist". Especially not in the context the statement fell. He was clearly talking about them not committing 100% to every statement in WAN, they react to and discuss big and small in the tech space, they are not doing reporting, they are not fashioning it as reporting. And it was in the context of Luke's "I dunno".

If he said he was not a tech reviewer, it would be more of a scandal.

 

Edit/addition:

Coming to think of it. L&L talk about going "I dunno" as a "this is my personal reaction/opinion right now" disclaimer because people take them way to serious and weigh them on every word, and you literally go "well, 3 years ago you said these words and now you say these words" completely ignoring the context of the two statements. Way to prove their point. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

2 hours ago, ToboRobot said:

How dare youtubers not adhere to the same standards as the New York Times!!!

Implying that YouTubers are inherently lesser than journalists. How can you be so cruel and hurtful towards LMG? I thought based on your previous posts that you were a big fan and think very highly of them. Seems like you don't, given that you don't think they should have standards comparable to other media outlets.

[TetraSky]

I thought the only form of "journalism" LTT did was when they covered big events like CES. Typical LTT videos are basically for entertainment only with a bit of tech sprinkled on top.

 

That offhand comment in the latest WAN was more of a jab toward GN because GN did in fact claim to be doing journalisms(I think that bit was removed since?) in writing on their website. Linus just reads a scripts and nowhere, in writing, does it say they are journalists AFAIK.

Frankly, this whole thing is childish and I simply stopped caring about it a while ago. Airing dirty laundry for all to see ain't something I care to see or hear about. I'm just here to have a good time and be entertained by the jester on screen. If I want to know more about something that was covered, I go see more myself. Do we have to bring this shit back again because someone decided to nitpick on something again?

[FrozenIpaq]

4 hours ago, I forgot my password said:

This imo is comparable to the plan to have multiple separate Labs channels, which has not been materialized except for PSU Circuit, not to the appearance of Labs data/personnel in LTT/ShortCircuit videos. I think the latter can be confusing, especially when the hosts keep missing key features of the product in the "unboxing/first impression" portion of ShortCircuit from time to time. The difference in the amount of care put into the same video/channel is not exactly small. I think this pollutes Labs' effort to strengthen tech journalism.

 

Okay I indeed messed up and shouldn't have quoted Linus' letter to Steve. Maybe that statement "We never cosplayed as journalists" was also just him misremembering the exact wording and he only meant he didn't.

 

But I still maintain that LMG in general should be held to journalistic standard. I am not saying that the community in general isn't holding LMG to that, just that I feel like Linus is trying pursuade us that we shouldn't, which I am against because I think it does not help with the goal that past Linus had in mind and promoted to the community.

They're not journalists and have never claimed to be. Your quote about the labs is them talking aspirational about the future, not the present. They are an entertainment channel still but try to maintain some "journalistic" standards because well, they're pretty good things to follow even if you aren't a journalist. They're an entertainment company, a media company, a product development company, etc. The labs website and team might try to be more "journalistic" in their content but they aren't right now. 

 

Do you have any examples of journalism standards and what they should be held to? Also, he may be using the word journalism in a broader, more general sense in his early statements but they are in no way a confirmation that they think of themselves or present themselves as journalists today.

[tkitch]

7 hours ago, ToboRobot said:

How dare youtubers not adhere to the same standards as the New York Times!!!

If they're claiming to be investigative journalists as a statement of fact?

Why shouldn't they be?

[MadAnt250]

On 3/26/2025 at 8:40 AM, I forgot my password said:

"we never cosplayed as journalists" on the most recent WAN Show...

 

They are not pretending be if journalism is part of their job. Therefore the statement/quote is true.

[smcoakley]

On 3/26/2025 at 7:40 AM, I forgot my password said:

@LinusTech, you said "we never cosplayed as journalists" on the most recent WAN Show...

Also from the same WAN show, literally 54 seconds before that quote, Luke says, "Everyone's way too serious about ****ing everything these days, that if you say something, they have automatically decided that you will die on the hill for what you just said."

 

You know what? I'm really relating to Luke right now. I hope the irony of your seriousness about dissecting this offhand comment is not lost on you.

[dogwitch]

41 minutes ago, smcoakley said:

Also from the same WAN show, literally 54 seconds before that quote, Luke says, "Everyone's way too serious about ****ing everything these days, that if you say something, they have automatically decided that you will die on the hill for what you just said."

 

You know what? I'm really relating to Luke right now. I hope the irony of your seriousness about dissecting this offhand comment is not lost on you.

sadly it wont be...

i see people now straight up make up fantasy in comments that hve nothing for the related comment to start with.

it that bad now

[I forgot my password]

19 hours ago, smcoakley said:

Also from the same WAN show, literally 54 seconds before that quote, Luke says, "Everyone's way too serious about ****ing everything these days, that if you say something, they have automatically decided that you will die on the hill for what you just said."

 

You know what? I'm really relating to Luke right now. I hope the irony of your seriousness about dissecting this offhand comment is not lost on you.

As if I didn't listen to the whole show...there's a reason why I quoted a scripted video. I recommend you to read my second reply of this thread (just the first part, Linus indeed didn't claim himself a journalist)

But anyway, I do think I was not thinking about this in the correct way. The very last sentence of the reply that I marked as the solution represents the debate I actually have in my mind.

[DeerDK]

15 hours ago, I forgot my password said:

As if I didn't listen to the whole show...there's a reason why I quoted a scripted video. I recommend you to read my second reply of this thread (just the first part, Linus indeed didn't claim himself a journalist)

But anyway, I do think I was not thinking about this in the correct way. The very last sentence of the reply that I marked as the solution represents the debate I actually have in my mind.

Since the comment fell in the specific context of the Wan show, and you keep taking it out of that context, it's no surprise that people still hammer on that point. 

[Likwid]

On 3/28/2025 at 2:58 PM, TetraSky said:

I thought the only form of "journalism" LTT did was when they covered big events like CES. Typical LTT videos are basically for entertainment only with a bit of tech sprinkled on top.

 

That offhand comment in the latest WAN was more of a jab toward GN because GN did in fact claim to be doing journalisms(I think that bit was removed since?) in writing on their website. Linus just reads a scripts and nowhere, in writing, does it say they are journalists AFAIK.

Frankly, this whole thing is childish and I simply stopped caring about it a while ago. Airing dirty laundry for all to see ain't something I care to see or hear about. I'm just here to have a good time and be entertained by the jester on screen. If I want to know more about something that was covered, I go see more myself. Do we have to bring this shit back again because someone decided to nitpick on something again?

If we call all LTT and GN video's a journalist pieces what would still mean that their data accuracy and not being biased is stll a huge margin better than "most" journalist pieces you can find in mainstream media.