There's quite a lot of scope for interpretation of this statement:
> Unfortunately, he told me he had discovered my real name and would reveal it in the article, ie doxx me.
It's not clear from the post whether there was any conversation with the journalist about this aspect of the planned article, and/or whether there were any requests not to include the person's full name.
I think most of us agree that staying well-informed is useful and important, and I'd argue that news organizations contribute effectively to that.
Blogging and tweeting are useful additional mediums, but they can't always achieve the same results as publications that have research teams, archives, experienced investigative reporters, and legal teams to defend them when they encounter powerful opposition.
It could be worth taking a pause and waiting for more details before attributing all of the blame to the NYT (or even more wildly, journalism as a whole) here.
Edit (append-only): as noted elsewhere (see child comments) there had been some two-way conversation with the journalist regarding publication of the author's name.
It could be useful to learn more about what the nature of NYT's policy on publishing real names is, and the intent and reasoning behind that.
> It's not clear from the post whether there was any conversation with the journalist about this aspect of the planned article, and/or whether there were any requests not to include the person's full name.
There were; this has been made clear elsewhere. The reporter was also made aware that the blog would be shut down if it came to that, and still refused to redact OP's real name from their article.
(Allegedly, it seems that NYT general policy can allow a person to be anonymous if warranted, but it's less clear that pseudonimity is contemplated.)
Thanks. This is going to take a little time to digest.
Often in conflicts like this it's worth considering what the outcome of the battle will be and what the implications are.
The thread you linked to here sounds reasonable and it's good to see that it doesn't assign blame to the journalist and appreciates that they've been acting within what may be the confines of their workplace policy.
That said -- the real name policy probably exists for a reason, perhaps to ensure that subjects of news that is in the public interest find it more difficult to evade scrutiny. (edit: add word 'perhaps'; conjecture)
I'm not implying that scrutiny of the blog and community are necessarily a good thing. I honestly don't know how much influence they have. But policy changes can have lasting effects in other, potentially very different, circumstances, so I'll take a bit of time and update my comment based on this.
The intent and nature of the article could be important; and where it exists on various spectrums including newsworthiness, public importance, accuracy, information content.
It's also possible that the article - even if hardly read today - could become relevant in future in ways that we can't currently understand.
It could be argued that deleting the blog was an attempt to influence or close down aspects of the yet-unpublished article and reporting process. In other ways it may have actually added additional context.
> Unfortunately, he told me he had discovered my real name and would reveal it in the article, ie doxx me.
It's not clear from the post whether there was any conversation with the journalist about this aspect of the planned article, and/or whether there were any requests not to include the person's full name.
I think most of us agree that staying well-informed is useful and important, and I'd argue that news organizations contribute effectively to that.
Blogging and tweeting are useful additional mediums, but they can't always achieve the same results as publications that have research teams, archives, experienced investigative reporters, and legal teams to defend them when they encounter powerful opposition.
It could be worth taking a pause and waiting for more details before attributing all of the blame to the NYT (or even more wildly, journalism as a whole) here.
Edit (append-only): as noted elsewhere (see child comments) there had been some two-way conversation with the journalist regarding publication of the author's name.
It could be useful to learn more about what the nature of NYT's policy on publishing real names is, and the intent and reasoning behind that.