The "RSS Wars" and journalism

Tim Bray has some extremely interesting comments on the recent "RSS Wars" story:

Today c|net published some red-hot coverage (well, the news was months old, but whatever) of the RSS/Pie/Echo/Atom dynamics. The story genially ignored all the technical issues and focused on a thinly-documented tale of internecine infighting. But it was well-written and, I must admit, came out pretty readable. ...

[The reporter] called preparing for this story, and actively tried to get me to say something bad about Dave. By my count, on three occasions in a less-than-half-hour interview. ...

So pretty clearly what happened was, somebody told him about the nasty stuff, and he called everyone and nobody would go on the record about personality issues (surprise, surprise), and so had to write the story quoting weeks-old blog pickings.

Said Dave has a dissection of his own, e.g.:

Did you see the News.Com article? Pretty horrible. They are good at the fight-prolonging thing.

I find it instructive to observe this rebuttal ability and process.

I've already said the following in a few places, so I suppose I can't get in trouble for saying it again (famous last words...): The "RSS Wars" aren't about personalities, they're about visions.

Following my resolution of keep-my-mouth-shut, I'll say no more (especially about the RSS Wars themselves!).

Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog (Wikipedia, Google, censorware, and an inside view of net-politics) - Syndicate site (subscribe, RSS)