The article “It’s Silicon Valley 2 Ellen Pay 0: Fighter of Sexism Is Out at Reddit” written by Mike Isaac and David Streitfeld and published in 2015 by the New York Times takes a stance in the conflict between Reddit and its chief executive Ellen Pao. It tries to convey the hardships of Ellen Pao trying to fight gender inequality and sexism in Silicon Valley, while using her lawsuit against a former employer and factual information of Reddit as fillers. The clash of different events and pieces of information create an article which lacks coherent flow of information and fails to convey the case as a proper news story should and instead offers a quite subjective view on the situation, making it seem more like a column.
The article seems to lack the objectivity of a news story from the start. The headline as well as the first few sentences reveal the
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The audience is expected to know the basics of both the Reddit issue and Ms. Pao’s court case. Neither is explicitly explained in the article, which makes it difficult to connect the two events to each other without any previous knowledge. The article focuses mostly on drawing conclusions on the state of gender equality and the responses from the public: “After her departure was announced, Reddit users celebrated in an over-the-top fashion. “Rejoice brethren, - - the great evil has been slain.”” This create an even clearer division between Ms. Pao’s great efforts and the deeply stuck disrespect of the opposing side, making it seem like an effort to convince the audience of the view presented. Other quotations from leaders in the industry have similar connotations and seem to be picked to support the argument. Between the strong references from others and the poorly-linked evidence from the court case the relevant information that a news story should be conveying seems to be