Infothought

Debunking Wikimedia Foundation "executive chairman" story

[Real journalism here! Not an echo! Even if nobody reads it ...]

There was a gossip-blog story yesterday which claimed that Jimmy Wales secretly retains legal control of the Wikimedia Foundation (the owner of Wikipedia):

A Florida business registration for the nonprofit filed last May shows Wales's title did change -- but to "EC," short for "executive chairman," a worker in Florida's Department of State confirms. On paper, Wales still outranks Devouard. Could he have told her that "EC" stands for "emeritus chair," while secretly keeping legal authority over Wikipedia to himself?

I was extremely skeptical, but since there's been so much dirt coming out recently I didn't ignore it entirely (which I should have). I wasted entirely too much time chasing it around Florida's Department of State. According to what I was told, the above quote is just wrong. A registration can have any set of titles that the organization wants. There's no legal standard. If they say "EC" stands for "emeritus chair", it's up to them. If they wanted to make up a title "Godking", they could. There's no big revelation, the form is exactly a trivial report.

Look, I understand that since the Wikipedia cult functions as a hype machine, with drama and scandal aplenty, figuring out what's reasonable and what's paranoia is not always easy. But this item was out into literal paranoia reaches. It was an accusation of major, major fraud, possible criminality. The number of Board members who would have had to go along with misrepresentation made it dubious on its face.

This sort of stuff is counter-productive for Wikipedia critics.

Sex, Lies, And Wikipedia Scandals Of Jimmy Wales

I go back and forth between thinking the lid is finally coming off the extremely seamy underside of the cult of Wikipedia, and a sympathy backlash when I see some of the severe errors which have been made in the reporting of the various scandals. I can't decide if it's all ending up as rough justice where multiple attention-mongers deserve what they get from each other, or if many wrongs don't make any right.

Here's one specific example from "The Sydney Morning Herald"
More woes for Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales

Earlier, an ex-girlfriend, Rachel Marsden, leaked instant messaging transcripts that purported to show Wales using his influence to improperly make changes to Marsden's Wikipedia entry so he could continue "f---ing [her] brains out".

In fact, that's a direct lift of phrasing from sensationalist blog ValleyWag, self-described as "Silicon Valley's Tech Gossip Rag", which has

While they were together, Wales promised Marsden swift action on edits so he could "continue fucking [her] brains out."

That phrases it as if Wales stated a quid-pro-quo, of edits for sex. But he didn't say that. The whole quote in context is:

jimbo.wales: right so the way it is told now, hang on a second
let's actually do this right now
because the last thing I want to do is take a break from fucking your brains out all night to work on your wikipedia entry :)

Note there's no "continue" in the real quote. That is, he basically said he wanted to get the work done so it doesn't interrupt play, not that he's trading edits for trysts. The word "continue" shows that the _Morning Herald_ got it from ValleyWag. So an inaccurate gossip blog post has been reputation-laundered into a far more prestigious venue. And henceforth an edits-for-sex accusation-cloud is going to follow Jimmy Wales around forever.

Live by media manipulation, die by media manipulation?

Gooptions As Case Study Of The Failure Of Journalism (MSM Or "Citizen")

The Google Employee Stock Options coverage has been a case study in uncritical thinking. I know, what else is new, but I'll say it anyway.

About the best other criticism I've found is an excellent post on SearchViews, doing time-value calculations, about the aspect of that the plan dramatically shortens the time of the option when the employee sells it.

Initially hailed as an innovative HR strategy, then called "good for investors", the option plan has received so much praise that Internet Outsider asks, "If anyone has figured out the drawbacks of Google's new transferable option plan, please weigh in, because at first glance it looks like a win all around." Though numerous 'draw backs' have been suggested, including "an employee rush for exits", "shareholder dilution" and "arrogance", I'm surprised that no one has pointed out the most important nugget from plan's fine print: [detailed calculation]

But it's almost all been echoing of Google's announcement, or confusion over what the "transfer"/sale system does - and what it does not do. For example, there is no innovation here in determining the value of a Google stock price option. There's already a big public market in trading such options. The auction is basically just to determine who is the low bidder for handling the employee option transaction, given there's some weird constraints in the process. Which bring me to one simple example, in discussing the program, where what should be grist for serious reporting has apparently passed unnoticed:

Institutional buyers, who will be invited by Google to participate, will not be able to resell the employee stock options.

No offense meant to any reporter, but what in the world does this sentence MEAN? That is, it should be a big red flag that something strange is going on. Options on a stock are bought and sold all the time. How is the institutional buyer intended to distinguish from "the employee stock options" and "the stock options bought from yesterday's sheep-shearing"?

And this connects to the earlier issue of why not just let employees sell their stock options on the open market? After thinking about it for a while, I *suspect* this has to with the connection between the options and the underlying stock, maybe that if employee options were released into the open market, they would have to be covered by the company issuing stock (or something similar). But if they're just "transfered" to an institution, they still exist in accounting format as options, so certain negative effects (from Google's point of view) are avoided.

Wouldn't you like to know what this is all about? I would. I'm sure there's a professor of finance out there somewhere, who could explain it all. And might even be *blogging* - to an audience of a few hundred people. But they definitely haven't been found by the big echo chambers. And if that person ever did receive a little attention, the blog-evangelists would shout from their hilltops, the bogosphere triumphs - there's a specialist somewhere on the planet, so "overall" - not counting the endless hype reverberating from the massive audience "blogs", and also discounting that "old media" includes small trade newsletters too - blogs win!

I really think it says something profound about the failure of journalism in terms of civic structure, that random unpaid volunteers are supposed to provide the work that isn't supported otherwise.

STEWART: ... it's not so much that it's bad, as it's hurting America.

STEWART: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.

[Update: Changed title from earlier version - share the blame]

Adventures in Unpaid Freelancing, aka Citizen Journalism - Nonlethal Weapon Edition

[This post is dedicated to those people sincerely self-deluded or professionally delusional who think the bogosphere is democracy's (not demagoguery's) last best hope on Earth]

When I saw the Air Force / Non-lethal weapons testing story, on a mailing list, critical thought lead me to be immediately skeptical. So I started to dig around for material to write a reply (note the context is that I assume, or at least hope, members of the mailing-list will read the reply).

First problem, why blogging doesn't work: Blog references to the article are virtually all echoes or rants about it. In a hot story, there's piles and piles of these, making finding actual information difficult. I couldn't find any explanatory material. Just lots of arguing.

So I decided to do some actual work, and called the Air Force to ask them about what was really said. Note there's no incentive to do this. Just to argue.

It's really very easy. The media people just ask your name and affiliation.

Note from the field: I'd feel absolutely ludicrous replying to such a question by saying "I'm a citizen journalist". It sounds ridiculous. Worse than "I'm second-class", because even being second-class at least is in the rankings. More like "I'm a nobody pompously playing make-believe". Anyway, these days, one of the minor benefits of all the blog-hype is that saying "I'm a blogger" works well enough, not requiring involved explanations.

And I was promptly emailed a transcript. Which is sadly just the start of the effort required if I'm going to try to make much use of the material.

Now, if I want to be heard in the bogosphere, I have to pitch to gatekeepers. Which ones? Note you really have to know the "Writer's Market" here (the blog-evangelist's idea that, little Z-lister, you can make a hyperlink to the big boy's story, and some day, someone might actually search and follow it amidst all the spam and me-too and hell-in-a-handbasket, and read YOU-YES-YOU, doesn't that prospect just fill you with thrills at civic participation, come to the meConference and work for free - these people have nothing on "Let them eat cake").

The problem is that the left-wing side would not be interested in a debunking of the latest They're-Coming-To-Get-Us, and the right-wing side, well, that's a dangerous game. I suppose I could have asked some of the media A-listers for attention ("looky looky here, cit-i-zen jour-nal-ism"). But frankly, the thinker BigHeads don't send all that much traffic. Their specific power is more indirect, of nominating a person as worthy of being a junior club-member. And asking them for links also involves the backscratching relationships, where they may feel that criticism is disloyal (another aspect where personal nature tends to lead to cliquishness).

I settled for some comments, which drew a few dozen hits, and trying the Boingers (post accepted, ~ 1500 hits). All in all, it was a drop in the bucket, and arguably a lot of wasted time on my part. I know people are going to say it was worth it. But the problem there is that doesn't consider the cost to me, versus the lack of benefit to me.

TRANSCRIPT - Air Force Secretary On Nonlethal Weapons, Testing, US crowds

[In response to my query to the Air Force regarding the nonlethal weapons story and what was actually said by Secretary Michael Wynne, this was received directly by email from:

AARON D. BURGSTEIN, Maj, USAF
SECAF Strategic Communications Advisor
HAF/CX, 4E547
DSN 224-8065;
aaron.burgstein[at-sign]pentagon.af.mil
]

SECAF COMMENTS ON NON-LETHAL WEAPONS

Context: Defense Writers Group, 12 Sep
Current line of questions concern F-35

15 minutes, 13 seconds into interview

Q. Why haven't you sold the capabilities, the non-lethal, the HPM, capabilities of this (the F-35) airplane? I went to talk with the Australians and that was one of the big things they wanted out of it, was the weapons and jamming capability and the communications capability and the radar. The Italians said the same thing, they said 'our parliament hates dropping bombs on people' they want a non-lethal weapon, but yet, nothing is said about those capabilities and your desire to push them. Do you want to push them? Is there resistance against it?

A. Non-lethal weapons are still being reviewed by the medical group. It's a kind of an interesting thing about non-lethal weapons. I will tell you that having seen the high-powered microwave that is a crowd disperser, the ADS system, used in a system and actually being invited to put your finger in the hole and by golly you'll see that your resistance is somewhat weakened when the beam hits you. Basically my point to them was (that) we need to start using that here in the United States on Americans. And if we start using that here in the United States on Americans and you start getting relief from people, because if the first people you use it on are your enemies, then unfortunately the first thing they will do is cry out that you have hurt them medically in a way that is pejorative.

Q. You mean like in police work?

A. Yes. So I think we should use it, if we're not willing to use it here, against our fellow citizens then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation. And I say that knowing the way the world works right now is that - the Indians as you remember in the early 1800s and mid-1800s thought you were stealing their soul when you hit them with a flash camera. You were actually covering them in soot, which may have been the same thing. But nowadays if I hit someone with a non-lethal weapon and they claim it injured them in a way that was non-intended, I think I'd be vilified in the world press.

Q. So we're not going to see funding to develop those non-lethal capabilities in the F-22 and F-35 then until?.

A. Until that is resolved.

Q. Ok, would that then put a horizon on the development of those kind of capabilities out 10-15 years?

A. I'd say that the platform as a platform contains enough power, which is derived from the engines. I think the power is there to support a high-powered non-lethal device, but right now the tech lags, and it lags primarily in size. Fighters are only so big. And the scope of usage. It's right now the stuff of great novels.

DEBUNKING Air Force Secretary Test Nonlethal Weapons On US crowds First Hype

Context:
Air Force chief: Test weapons on testy U.S. mobs is causing much reaction, with many people making far more of it than seems justified (remember, popularity comes from hype, not from being accurate). I wrote the following for a mailing-list, reposting it. Transcript to follow.

I hate to sound like a Bush apologist, but fair is fair - it reads to me like a "GOTCHA!" by the reporter. Key aspects which should be red flags for some skepticism are that:

a) The most inflammatory aspects are the reporter's paraphrase
b) It's given a sensationalistic headline
c) Context is carefully elided as to what preceded the actual quote

I conjecture that what happened was something like the following (and if a transcript comes out, we'll know, though it'll be too late):

Reporter: Mr Secretary, there's been some work on nonlethal weapons. Although these aren't considered safe to use yet in the US, would the Air Force consider using them in Iraq battles?

Secretary: [article quote] "If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

[i.e. paraphrased - No, we should eat our own dog food. And if we use something in Iraq that we haven't used in the US, we'll get slammed as doing Dr. Strangelove type experiments on the Iraqis.]

[Reporter: GOTCHA! "Air Force chief: Test weapons on testy U.S. mobs"] [I suspect if the answer had been the opposite, the article would have been "Air Force will use Iraqis as guinea pigs to test science-fiction weapons"]

That answer is a perfectly reasonable, even slightly laudable, reply in context. Even if it's not exactly nice to talk about PR negatives from weapons use, so that part was a moral _faux pas_, pragmatically he did have a point.

The article's more about pressing people's fear buttons than anything else.

By the way, there aren't any truly non-lethal weapons. A little while ago in Boston, a bystander was killed by a pepper-gun pellet which went through her eye then into her brain.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/09/21/in_snelgrove_files_officers_recount_night_of_chaos/

"EU SMS/email tax" story debunked

[The EU lawmakers consider taxing emails, SMS messages" story is echoing now. I wrote the following debunking for a mailing-list, in a futile attempt to use the wonderous power of The Internet and unpaid freelancing, I mean, "citizen journalism", to debunk bad reporting. We see how well that's working ...]

As far as I can tell, this story is being blown way, way, out of proportion. The EU is nowhere near taxing e-mail or text messages. One member put forth the idea in a discussion, but it's unclear if anything ever happened after that. I managed to trace back what might be the source:

http://tinyurl.com/l3h58

"Participants were not short of imagination for new forms of funding: taxes on flights, company profits or even on short text messages sent by mobile phones. The supporter of this idea, EP own resources rapporteur Alain Lamassoure (EPP-ED, FR), also believed that the new system would have to be clearly linked with benefits drawn from the European Union. Thanks to the internal market "exchanges between countries have ballooned, so everyone would understand that the money to finance the EU should come from the benefits engendered by the EU," he explained."

Then there was an interview with a newspaper, EU Observer, which is now locked in pay-archives, though there's some excerpts here:
http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2006/05/012321.htm

Alain Lamassoure has a website here:
http://www.alainlamassoure.com/

There's a forum where he's responding, but it's in French, and I don't feel comfortable attempting to translate his replies.

But there's a vast difference between some woolgathering, and any sort of formal proposal, much less anything being enacted.

Declan McCullagh E-annoyance

aka, Declan McCullagh Is At It Again.

Some assorted debunking, from various lawyers:

http://volokh.com/posts/1136873535.shtml

[Orin Kerr, January 10, 2006 at 1:12am]
A Skeptical Look at "Create an E-annoyance, Go to Jail":

Declan McCullagh has penned a column that is custom-designed to race around the blogosphere. It begins:

"Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime. It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity. ... [ed: snip]"

This is just the perfect blogosphere story, isn't it? It combines threats to bloggers with government incompetence and Big Brother, all wrapped up and tied togther with a little bow. Unsurprisingly, a lot of bloggers are taking the bait.

Skeptical readers will be shocked, shocked to know that the truth is quite different. ...

[I can't help but think that when Orin Kerr at "Volokh Conspiracy" writes a post like the above, you know Declan has been utterly egregious.]

http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/01/annoy_someone_o.html#comments

Daniel Solove

Declan's article is misleading. The provision extends a telephone harassment law to apply to email. Declan describes the provision as applying whenever a person "annoys" another: "A new federal law states that when you annoy someone on the Internet, you must disclose your identity."

But that's not what the law says. Instead it provides:

"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

Note that "annoy" is part of the intent element of the statute -- it requires the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass. Far from an anti-anonymity provision that applies whenever a person annoys another, it is merely a prohibition on harassment. Declan writes: "In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name." I don't see any basis for the law to apply in this instance.

[Addition 1/12: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/archives/002638.html

Ann Bartow

"I may be missing something, but I don't think either e-mail or web logs would be considered "telecommunications devices" that would be subject to the stated prohibitions (which, in fairness, are awfully vague)."

]

There's a legislative summary here: http://www.gop.gov/Committeecentral/bills/hr3402.asp

To strengthen stalking prosecution tools, this section expands the definition of a telecommunications device to include any device or software that uses the Internet and possible Internet technologies such as voice over internet services. This amendment will allow federal prosecutors more discretion in charging stalking cases that occur entirely over the internet.

[Sigh .. Why should I bother? What good does it do? It'll be the exact same credulity all around the next time Declan McCullagh makes up a story]

Al Gore, Webby Award, Internet, Journalists

[I received this from a PR person, but consider it a mutual interest to post]

http://www.webbyawards.com

New York, NY (May 3, 2005) - The winners of The 9th Annual Webby Awards will be saluted alongside former Vice President Al Gore at the internet honors' ceremony in New York City on June 6th, the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences announced today.

Because:

The Webby Lifetime Achievement Award: Former Vice President Al Gore

Setting the record straight on one of recent history's most persistent political myths, The Webby Awards will present Former Vice President Al Gore with The Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of the pivotal role he has played in the development of the internet over the past three decades. Vint Cerf, widely credited as one of the "fathers of the internet," will present Vice President Gore with the award.

As my page of Al Gore "invented the Internet" - resources documents, this myth has indeed been persistent. In fact, just very recently, the person who outright invented the story, Declan McCullagh ( "If it's true that Al Gore created the Internet, then I created the "Al Gore created the Internet" story."), was still propagating it in his columns ("... and Al Gore's apparently serious claim to have "created" the Internet.").

Note that extensive rebuttal in the comments, sadly does no good.

This leads to one of my questions to those infatuated with the idea of feedback and blogs fact-checking journalists: What if the "journalist" just doesn't care? What if he knows that what he writes, even if politically appealing fiction (in fact, especially if politically appealing fiction), will be sent to a huge number of people, and any corrections in comments or relatively trivial blogs will reach an insignificant audience? We have here a perfect case study of the phenomena.

Debunking Declan McCullagh's "The Coming Crackdown On Blogging"

Debunking proceeds apace, for whatever effect it may have:

Lincoln Plawg: McCain-Feingold the blog-killer? ("Conclusion of my first cut at this: the threat to the blogosphere is greatly exaggerated.") [via Crooked Timber]

Lots of links at:

Electrolite: More on the FEC, particularly:

Waldo Jaquith - The FEC is not going to regulate blogs ("Suffice it to say, Bradley Smith has every reason to rally the troops in strong opposition to the recently-enacted Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (aka McCain-Feingold) and campaign finance laws on the whole. And it seems that he's found a crew of suckers: bloggers.")

Iron Mouth: There Will Be No Crackdown ... ("Thus, Bradley Smith is pushing the truth a long way when he says that the judge is pushing the FEC to start going after every single link in every blog directing to a candidate's website.")

My contribution, of uncommon links:

Declan McCullagh has a history of hype-filled, yellow, "journalism", Have another, old, example:

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,32121,00.html

WASHINGTON -- US currency should include tracking devices that let the government tax private possession of dollar bills, a Federal Reserve official says.

When reading one of these articles, a grain of salt isn't enough, you need a whole salt-mine. And it's a stark warning as to what lies on the other end of the idea of "objectivity". This isn't a situation where one has to fiddle around with talk about cultural prejudice or unconscious bias. Declan McCullagh is a dogmatic Libertarian proselytizer.

And how much skepticism was applied, by far too few people, who reflexively echoed his Cato-mouthpiece agenda-driven scare-mongering?

"The Coming Crackdown On Blogging" - Declan McCullagh's At It Again

The Coming Crackdown On Blogging is today's hype. I had more material, but I dumped it, as not worth it. I do have something original to add:

Folks, here's a tip. Whenever you see Declan McCullagh flacking one of these "product placements", search against the Cato Institute site for the person's name. Works like a charm. It's like looking at the levers which move the mouth of the ventriloquist's dummy.

In this case, a Bradley Smith search quickly tells us all about campaign-finance reform from the Libertarian perspective, and just a little more searching give various opposition.

This flackery may not reach the height of Declan McCullagh's Al Gore hit-piece, or even the Howard Dean hatchet-job. But it's of similar ilk.

Slashdot "Editor Upgrade" Updates

There's a few items worth noting on the Slashdot "Editor Upgrade" story, and I as seem to be in the position of providing the most investigative facts on the matter, I'll do an update.

Even a month later, nobody who I would consider to be a "reliable source" is willing to talk. At this point, I'd provisionally infer from the silence everywhere that something did happen. But it's still utterly opaque.

The Censorware Project domain-hijack continues, with the renewal yet again of the censorware.org domain.

[Update May 21 2005: There may have been an autorenewal and nonpayment issue. The domain was at last able to be reclaimed in May 2005]

According to the WHOIS information now (emphasis mine):

Domain Name:CENSORWARE.ORG
Created On:25-Feb-1998 05:00:00 UTC
Last Updated On:25-Feb-2005 05:06:53 UTC
Expiration Date:24-Feb-2006 05:00:00 UTC

Remember, this hijacking basically did not matter in terms of any perceptible consequences for it. Whatever the truth of the reasons behind Slashdot's, err, "personnel change", I sadly doubt abusiveness played much of a part.

People keep telling me about the anonymous posting purportedly giving an insider account. I've been hesitant to give this more prominence. Perhaps I should have debunked it earlier. In my view, it's a "classic" troll posting. That is, not the absurd things about e.g. supposedly possessing an incriminating smuggled phonecam video capture of Satanic sex orgies with goats aboard the Slashdot yacht (that string should lead to some "interesting" Google hits ...). But rather, a well-crafted story which would be superficially credible.

It's reasonably written, However, any account talking about "[he] actually did move from New York to Canada to protest George W. Bush's inauguration in 2001", just can't be taken seriously, because that's fiction. Amusing fiction, maybe. Deserves points for creativity, perhaps. But, sigh, not the real story all the same.

I haven't tested or inquired to see if anything's different in terms of my possibly being un-marginalized in terms of having stories considered for posting at Slashdot. It just feels, well, futile ("Hey guys, now that the infamously abusive domain-hijacker who made confidential legal information available to censorware companies, and gladly worked with them to stop me from investigating censorware, and was even cited by them in formal DMCA testimony against me, is now gone, would a submission from an award-winning free-speech pioneer be treated fairly?"). I suppose I should ask, on pain of being deemed defeatist otherwise. But it's ... humiliating.

Slashdot "Editor Upgrade" CONFIRMED!

"Michael Sims fired Slashdot" has been one of the most popular Google searches to my website recently.

While I cannot determine if he was in fact fired from his Slashdot editor position, as distinguished from any other type of departure, it is with great pleasure that I can break the following news:

The OSTG (parent company of Slashdot) page of Editorial Bios (http://www.ostg.com/about/editorial_bios.htm) has now been revised and updated.

The name "Michael Sims", which previously was present, has now been removed from the listings.

This information is objective, and can be validated by visiting the page above.

"Editor Upgrade" Confirmed!

Excuse me for a moment.

"E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-EDITOR!!"

While I hope my reaction is understandable to long-time readers, people visiting this page from a search engine might want to read:

Michael Sims, Domain Hijacking and Moral Equivalency
Moral Equivalence and Censorware Project's hijacked domain
Bennett Haselton on Michael Sims' hijacking of censorware.org

And I didn't write any of that, and it's not from infamous flamers with axes to grind.

Unfortunately, this happens too late for me. But who knows? Maybe I'll eventually get a formal apology from someone at Slashdot. Stranger things have happened. Perhaps their minds are no longer closed.

Slashdot "Editor Upgrade" citizen-journalism inquiries come to naught

My "hyperlocal journalism" efforts to find out more about the Slashdot "editor upgrade" seemed to have reached a dead-end. The only new information I have is:

Watch the OSTG page of Editorial Bios (http://www.ostg.com/about/editorial_bios.htm). I believe if/when that page is revised, it will confirm the "upgrade" is true and complete.

Given that the low-level Slashdot employees aren't talking (at least to me), my original idea was to approach the journalistic problem from a different direction. Start from the corporate offices, and then go downwards, hoping to find someone who has knowledge of personnel, but is disinterested in the internal Slashdot politics. This hasn't worked, since even if the necessary person exists, finding him/her requires more skill at hierarchy-navigation and telephone-tag than I possess.

Today I had a variation on the idea - try the middle. I briefly talked to an OSTG'er who at last knew what the website "Slashdot" was. But they didn't have anything to say beyond what sounded like sincerely helpful advice to talk to the person in charge of Slashdot (i.e., they didn't know anything, as opposed to knowing but not telling). Again, no "personal" factors here, it was standard editorial/journalist conversation.

At this point, I'm out of ideas, and am beginning to worry I'm taking too many chances. Investigative journalism takes time and persistence, and it's tough to do it for nothing. Let's see, maybe the great distributed power of the bogosphere can emergently produce the necessary information (not speculation). If I find anything (which sadly seems unlikely), I'll clearly mark the provenance of the information, and will not expect to be taken on face value. Anonymously remailed messages will be treated with the credibility they warrant - although I may privately chuckle at a good troll, I must decline to be a conduit.

I have my own speculations, but given my, well, let's say non-objectivity, I'd rather not add to the rumor-mill without something to back up my thoughts.

[Update 2/5 - a comment points out that the Bio page still lists Simon Carless ("simoniker"), even though "he left months ago".]

[Update #2 2/5 - Interestingly, Simon Carless' linklog has an entry on February 05, 2005:

Michael 'Zonk' Zenke now full-time Slashdot editor (Congrats! Coincides with the departure of Michael, and good luck to him.)

]

[Update #3 2/5 - In response to an email inquiry, Simon clarifies that he has no first-hand information. ]

Slashdot "Editor Upgrade"?

There is a rumor that Slashdot has undergone an "editor upgrade". I don't know anything about it beyond what's available to the general public.

In the tradition of, err, "hyperlocal journalism", I called the parent company, OSTG, and tried to find someone who could confirm or deny "a rumor of a personnel change at the website Slashdot" (as I phrased it). I got shunted to a marketing person who wasn't in the office, so that was a dead end (n.b., it can't have been personal, as I was never asked who I was).

I sent some e-mail inquiries to people who might tell me, and haven't gotten any reply. But I wouldn't be surprised there's a staff policy not to talk about personnel matters. On the other hand, I wouldn't draw any inference from my being ignored either.

It would be nice to have it be safe for me to submit stories to Slashdot. . But even if so, it's really too late now. I've quit all censorware decryption research and pretty much now abandoned DMCA-fighting. So the damage has been done, and I don't see myself ever going back to that activism. But there's still e.g. the Nitke v. Ashcroft Federal trial (about the Internet and "community standards" for obscenity), where I'm an expert witness.

But, as I've mentioned many a time, Slashdot's de facto support connected to the domain hijacking of Censorware Project did tremendous harm. So an "editor upgrade" would mean something to me, but much less than might naively be thought.

[Note, yes, the language in this post is deliberately careful]

[Update 2/3 : I did another round of calling OSTG, another dead-end, this time at human resources. To give a sense of perspective, in my bureaucracy meanderings, I have yet to speak to anyone who has even heard of Slashdot! (or at least is willing to admit it ...). And nobody who might know is willing to leak to me.]

"WebCred" Conference comments, or Love For The Linklorn

As the "Webcred" "Blogging, Journalism, Credibility" Harvard conference begins, let me make the the probably futile effort of attempting to draw attention to some valuable perspectives. Here are some gems buried in the comments:

If this conference were a news article, I think it would be fair game to point out that it's full of sources and quotes talking about a third party, without including any quotes from that third party. In that situation, I think we'd be within our rights to question that news article's credibility. Given that this conference is about blogging, journalism, and (yes) credibility, I'd like to think the organizers might find that troubling.

("The One True b!X", who actually does unpaid, I mean "citizen's", journalism, at the underattentioned Portland Communique)

How come everybody talks about bloggers in pajamas when all I keep finding are corporate lawyers with ties to Republican Administrations and big, fat corporate clients?

What's going on here?

(Richard Succer, regarding that many A-list right-wing bloggers are not exactly proletarian)

: The ethic of pomposity: We believe in speaking for persons other than ourselves.

: The ethic of narcissism: We love to hear ourselves speak. We can't get enough of ourselves.

: The ethic of humanity: We repeat ourselves, endlessly.

: The ethic of the wank: We believe in linking to people who kiss our ass. Everyone else can kiss our ass.

: The ethic of correction: We believe it is vital to correct errors when we can't weasel out of it. And then we bitch about everyone who mentions our error, and pout.

: The ethic of idiocy: We accuse others of placing peoples' lives in danger by mentioning things we mentioned long ago. We have no shame.

("Jar Jar Vinks", parodying a certain A-lister)

the problem here is that "news" (at least the credible kind) and "business" are mutually exclusive. We can turn news into a "conversation", make it transparent, etc...but we won't unless the delivery of news is separated from the profit motive.

And that ain't happening.

In reality, the changes in the "business model" for news delivery will result not in a conversation with the news consumer, but will be a mirror of the consumer's own prejudices. [...]

This "tailored news" will be the model, because it will provide the business of "news" with an enormous amount of information that the "business" can use to sell advertising that is just as personalized and directed as your news feed.

That's why this conference (and your questions) are really just a bad joke. The war is already over, even if the combatants don't know it yet.... and "democratic government based on an informed citizenry" lost to "corporate profits"

(Paul Lukasiak, GLCQ)

See also:

Shelley Powers' post Give Unto Harvard that which is Harvard's

Paul Lukasiak: Open Letter to WebCred Conference

Dkosopedia

Frank Paynter's compilation Web Cred Conference Player Scorecard

"WebCred" Conference, and why it matters

The issues surrounding the "Webcred" Harvard conference continue to ferment (see also my earlier "Blogging, Journalism, Credibility" post, and to be fair, a conference FAQ).

One of my enduring frustrations in dealing with many people at the Berkman Center. is that they operate within an extremely insular bubble of enormous privilege, protection, and power. They just don't seem to take into account the damage the "H-bomb" (Harvard) can do to civilians, and how people can get hurt by their actions. Even if it wasn't malicious, even if it was just careless, or alternately do-what-you-have-to-do, that's small comfort to those on the receiving end of maltreatment. (disclosure/disclaimer: See the story of the Mike Godwin / Greplaw attacks for reasons I speak from experience here).

I've seen an amazing amount of cluelessness, including wonder that anyone could worry about negative aspects, as well as not do backflips that there's boy-oh-boy an IRC channel and a webcast (aren't you super-excited right there? You can follow along with the performers, and they might even acknowledge questions from the audience, if it's something they find worthy, wow wow, are we interactive yet?).

Consider: This is how Zephyr Teachout starts her infamous blog post discussing the Howard Dean campaign's arrangement with consultants who also had blogs (my emphasis):

"[Note: this post was written in anticipation of a conference next week on ethics, blogging, and journalism]"

That post created a significant political story. And the Webcred conference's publicity for it was the source of the eventual mass-media smears, per Ed Cone (my emphasis):

And over at Kos, they're wondering how the WSJ found out about this story in the first place, and they manage to trace it to my link to Zephyr and links from Instapundit and Jarvis. But they miss the first step: I read it on the Harvard conference blog.

Jerome Armstrong really got smeared by this whole thing, and he's pissed. I should have been clearer on his role in my original link to Zephyr's post, and I apologize for not doing it right.

Note, to forestall a distraction, the effect does not necessarily require saying "This is true". Rather, it's in an implication "This is worthwhile, this is important, this should be given your attention, etc.". However, in context, that's very, very close to "This is true", (though not absolutely identical) and the differences are much smaller than the overall connection. The issue is the power to focus attention on a statement, to give it a platform where it will be widely echoed and heard.

After the role the Harvard conference just played in getting those activists very widely and publicly smeared, the "little people" shouldn't have to explain over and over why it matters. It's a testament to the strength of the bubble that this point will not be grasped.

CBS Memos Report

The CBS Memos Report is now available in all its glory. Let the games begin!

The wingnuts are amusingly disappointed that the investigative panel does not rant "Liberal! Liberal! Liberal!" on every page, which is the framework by which they judge all things.

For myself, I'm fascinated by the report as it's a documentary in itself about the seamy underbelly of journalism. Too many such examinations are partisan hatchet-jobs. Rarely do we get a public investigation which has such a combination of thoroughness, detail, and not filled with political noise. Pure signal.

A rare look into the sausages:

[page 163] ... The point would be to shift the conversation from CBS did something wrong, to something wrong was done to us and we're mad as hell.

West rejected Howard's suggestion via a return e-mail at 8:39 a.m.:

I think we need to defend ourselves specifically [and] not even concede that we think it could be a hoax.

Or

[page 189] The Panel believes that such a detailed criticism was yet another occasion that should have resulted in an immediate and careful review of all the reporting behind the September 8 Segment. Instead of reviewing the reporting, however, CBS News simply continued to defend staunchly the September 8 Segment. ...

Such drama.

Ernest Miller has more along similar lines.

Anyway, I'm not going to write too much about it. The "Gatekeepers of the Media vs. Blog Triumphalism" post I did a while back, languished basically unread (and I have to be careful what I wish for, because I don't think I'd like what would have had to happen for it to be read). In any event, all the Usual Suspects are out in force.

But to me, the issue isn't "liberalism". It's "journalism".

"Blogging, Journalism & Credibility"

"Blogging, Journalism & Credibility" is a conference, well, I'll quote:

... an invitation-only conference to be held on January 21st and 22nd, 2005 entitled "Blogging, Journalism and Credibility: Battleground and Common Ground." The conference, which will bring together a select group of thoughtful bloggers and journalists, is being organized by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, the American Library Association's Office of Information Technology and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

...

To both journalism and blogging, credibility is essential. What are the areas of common ground shared by these very different approaches to handling news and information? Can journalists who also blog do their work without conflicting standards? Might bloggers adopt standards and a transparency that will elevate their credibility? Our purpose is to bring together a small group of smart and thoughtful people to ponder these and other related issues, which will result in a published report and - we hope - will mark the beginning of an on-going and very important dialogue.

The subject matter of the conference has been, err, "controversial", given the issues of "credibility", and the background of the participants. I summarized the problem in the following well-received comment:

It was all about cats
and their habitats
But they only invited
the dogs and the rats

[Not original with me, I read it somewhere]

I think the issue which some critics are exploring is that the speaker's list, overall, doesn't seem to have anyone who has to struggle for credibility. All names which I recognize are well-ensconced "club members", the sort of people who already have institutional validation as academics and/or journalists. They *are already considered* "credible", in a professional sense. This doesn't mean their reflections on the topic are wrong, but it might make the collective exploration somewhat limited, as a factual matter.

If the purpose is to puff the participants resumes, well, *shrug*, I suppose that's not a bad thing in itself, and there's not a whole lot for anyone else to say beyond pointing it out.

[Disclosure/disclaimer - although the suggestion that I should have an affiliation with the Berkman Center is sometimes raised by uninformed or well-intentioned people, realistically the chance of that happening these days is zero.]

Fact-Checking And Journalists

Here's two notes on posts I'm not going to write, and why, to add to reality-based thinking about blogs.

EFF's recent spam paper Noncommercial Email Lists: Collateral Damage in the Fight Against Spam has the following parade of horrible:

For example, the technology journalist Declan McCullagh reports that SpamCop blacklisted his email list ... Rectifying the situation proved difficult, and McCullagh was incorrectly listed as a spammer with SpamCop two more times after that.

Oh boy, is there more to the story than appears in that paragraph! But what's the point of my taking it on? Spam politics is a war-zone, and I'm unarmored. I don't need the fight. I'll just note a question for all the people enamored of the supposed power of blogs in fact-checking journalists:

What happens when someone fact-checks a journalist, and the journalist can just reply: "Sod off"? (or, for that matter, "Are you high?")

Further on the topic of blogs, facts, and journalists, the official report concerning the CBS forged memos scandal is due soon. This will be the result of the network's own internal investigation. I've thought of trying to expand a post I did on Gatekeepers of the Media vs. Blog Triumphalism, which examines the huge institutional support in going after Dan Rather. But the prospect of stirring up a hornet's nest of raving wingnuts, is not appealing. I'm not a club-member of one of the political alliances, so either nobody will hear it, or I'll just get slammed.

So much for the ability to be heard ...

CBS and Dan Rather admit forged memos, blogs, and The Pajama Game

Statements From CBS News and Dan Rather

CBS News Acknowledges That, Based on Subsequent Reporting on Questions About Documents, It Cannot Prove They are Authentic and, Therefore, They Should Not Have Been Used in the '60 Minutes Wednesday' Report

Now, compare (via iblog):

VIDEO OF JONATHAN KLEIN [FORMER CBS NEWS EXECUTIVE]: It's an important moment, you couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances, and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas, writing what he thinks.

With Washington Post: In Rush to Air, CBS Quashed Memo Worries:

But in separate phone calls to [60 Minutes producer Mary] Mapes that day, two of the network's outside experts tried to stop the journalistic train, or at least slow it down.

Linda James said she "cautioned" CBS "if they ran it, that the problems I saw, that other document examiners would see. It just wasn't ready. The package wasn't ready. It didn't meet authenticating [standards]. To go at that stage, I just couldn't imagine."

Emily Will said she called the network that Tuesday and repeated her objections as strongly as possible. "If you air the program on Wednesday," she recalled saying, "on Thursday you're going to have hundreds of document examiners raising the same questions."

There's now an outpouring of blather, because this all makes for a good story and talk-fodder: David vs. Goliath, Revolution vs. Dinosaur, New vs. Old Grassroots vs Established, CYBERSPACE!

But there's no popularity and links and echoing to be had in pointing out the simple fact that the problem is not that CBS didn't have the relevant information, but rather they just didn't want to hear it.

Journalism, standards, power, and the CBS / 60 minutes documents scandal

Ernest Miller writes

The credibility and integrity of anyone directly involved in this CBS story is lost, I believe. They have been complicit in the stonewall as well as tarring the integrity of those who pointed out discrepancies in their reporting. ...
Furthermore, the credibility and integrity of every other journalist at CBS News is in question. ...
Moreover, the entire journalistic profession is threatened by the actions of a rogue CBS. ...
I am serious when I say that this has become a crisis for journalism.

Sadly, I think "the crisis in journalism" is an evergreen topic, right up there with "the trouble with kids today" and "the negativity of political campaigning". The forged memos events are a "scandal". Not a "crisis".

What we have here is akin to the story of the mugger whose target turns out to be a heavyweight boxer, or a police beating caught on national TV. It's extremely embarrassing for the particular individuals involved, possibly even career-ending for them. But the systematic problem (crime, corruption) doesn't change.

Journalism, as a profession, is a very arrogant and abusive institution (no offense to any of my journalist-friends reading this - the fact that you're my friend means you're an exception to the rule :-)). Organizationally, when covering stories, there's a very small number of covered people who are generally granted the minimum of fairness - these are, e.g. people in political power. They aren't granted this respect out of the kindness of the journalist's heart. But rather, because those people have the power to fight back. Anyone else outside the magic circle is fair game for just about any abuse, character-assassination, lies, "being used", and so on.

It's like being a "made member" of the Mafia. That wiseguy status doesn't mean you can't be killed. It just means there's some due process, some consultation, before the decision can be undertaken within the organization to kill you.

Part of the "standards" argument between journalists and non-journalists, is actually about who belongs in this magic circle of respect. Journalists are passionately concerned about this topic, since their professional lives depend on it. Who is prey, and who is a pack-member? It's similar to the Mafia rules about who you can steal from. In this case, a don tried to ripoff a godfather. Bad move. Very bad move. Someone is going to hurt for it. But after the dust settles, nothing will change.

Remember, if you're not at least connected, and a journalist does a hit-job on you, then what you hear (if you are so lucky to even get a reply) is generally just:

1) "We stand by our story"

2) A variant of: we're the journalists and you're not (and you're not objective)

Sound familiar? Now, the understandable anger generated at this cavalier treatment typically leads to all sort of blather about emergent revolutions, power to the working class, routing around Big Media, etc. But we just get a new boss in place of the old boss.

And it doesn't change because the structure of the situation doesn't change, the exponential distribution of power. There are those who have a great deal of power, and those who have much less power, and generally nobody cares when the powerful abuse the powerless.

Ernest, look at an example within our "community", recall how few consequences there have been for Slashdot "journalist" Michael Sims' domain hijacking of the original Censorware Project website. Attorney-member Jonathan Wallace wrote (emphasis added)

I was naively astonished by [the reactions of moral equivalence]. If the ACLU's webmaster had trashed the organization's site, I think everyone would pretty well recognize he was a Bad Character and Not To Be Trusted. As much more minor players, despite the significant contributions we had made in revealing what censorware actually blocked, no-one could be bothered to take a stand for us. There was nothing to be gained.

And Bennett Haselton (Peacefire) said (not me)

The fact that Slashdot hired Michael should be deeply embarrassing to them, ... But Slashdot is apparently too deeply wedded that decision to reconsider, and comments from [Michael Sims' direct supervisor] have been more of the same along the lines of "They should work out their differences" ...

Now, note the journalistic aspect here. All along, I've maintained various actions can be explained from pure power. The most public trivializing, sneering, dismissive remark came exactly from the person within Slashdot who had the most professional journalism experience, and was hired specifically for that sort of background. And rationally, it made complete sense in terms of his job. Whatever he thought in private, whatever was morally right or wrong, in public he made a calculation as to whether the outsiders had any power, merited any respect. And if not, protect the insider (see above, no support as "There was nothing to be gained").

And it didn't matter at all.

So, CBS will fire someone, find a scapegoat (I suspect the internal argument there right now is whether it's going to be Dan Rather himself, or the story's producer, or whether they can get away with just a flunky). The basic line will then be that the scandal is "old news", changes have been made, all is right in the world again. They will say "We've moved on, and so should you". And nothing will change. Since they reach the same large number of people they did beforehand, who have the same small concern for accuracy they did beforehand.

"Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge." - Erwin Knoll

CMP, Google News, and the Echo Chamber

Now that the claim that CMP Media was blocking Google News, seems to have proven unfounded (though they do block CNET, I've verified that), I was curious as to how it spread. An interesting thing about all the data available, is that often it's possible to make an attempt to trace the path of a story.

It turns out a trace has already been done in an article by Sam Whitmore's Media Survey. Birds on a Wire:

Jonathan Dube's cyberjournalist.net blog had no such luck Jun. 24 when it reported that CMP Media was blocking Google News from linking to CMP news articles.

Once one bird flew off the wire, others followed.

...

If Cyberjournalist.net says it saw CMP blocking Google News, then it did, as far as we're concerned. But no one else did. Did anyone from Cyberjournalist.net call CMP to ask why it was blocking Google News? You'll have to ask them. All we know is that Cyberjournalist.net filed the blog item and others picked it up.

In the spirit of skepticism, I did my own trace, with a Feedster search on CMP and Google. The results are similar to the above.

Interesting result: I'd never heard of Cyberjournalist.net before this. It seems to be a "local" A-list, in that net journalists and PR types know it, but not people outside the field. Maybe the story was stopped before it could really get going? Perhaps because it involved journalists, who are members of the tribe, and so are heard by other journalists, when they complain about wrong stories? (if so, that's not helpful to me for my own media defense problems).

Dave Winer vs Big Media (or getting routed and run-around)

Dave Winer details being routed by Big Media:

We're getting nowhere with The Guardian on the lack of proper disclosure in Ben Hammersley's story about the supposed "wars" in the RSS community. The editors take weeks to respond, when they do they say the same thing over and over, they think his conflicts were adequately disclosed, but they don't explain why.

This is the arrogance of big media. ...

It's an op-ed piece that's not labeled as such, and no opportunity was provided for an opposing point of view. ...

Without taking sides on the RSS wars, I tender my sincerest sympathies on struggles with the media.

The lesson is this: For all the talk of "We Media" or "participatory journalism" or "citizen reporting" or some such, it's real clear where control lies. What happens when the journalist decides to blow-off any challenge? (e.g. sneering "Are you high?" or the like?)

Again, let's do some numbers. The Guardian has a circulation of 1,172,000. That's one million plus. The power-law lives.

Journalistic arrogance arises from very straightforward rational principles: They don't care. They don't have to. Because in general, they will reach far more people than anyone they abuse, so they have no accountability, except to others of similar power. And in general, telling one's friends the story doesn't alter anything. Case in point :-(.

And note there's nothing in the blog world which changes this. Power is power.

[I nearly didn't post this message, because of the potential recursive application, but I decided the violent agreement elements would probably let me get away with it]

"US Declares War On Porn", versus journalism thoughts

The report of "US declares war on porn" has been generating much blog chatter. This post isn't about that article. Instead, it's a meta-post about "unpaid", I mean, "citizen", journalism connected to that "war" (inspired by recent blogs and journalism discussions). As I mentioned in my item Bruce Taylor, Declan McCullagh, and "rotten little kids", I recently attended the debate " New Media Forums and the First Amendment", where I had the opportunity to ask questions and discuss issues with one of the key figures in that "war on porn" (the aforementioned Bruce Taylor).

Now, in terms of ordinary people doing journalism, this is a fine case study. A Senior Counsel of the United States Department of Justice was quite willing to talk with me, even "on the record". He didn't ask me for my press credentials or name, rank, and serial number. He was in fact very nice and personable. I didn't need any special access or status. What I needed was time. Time to spend the day attending the Harvard symposium (which was free and open), then going to the reception. Then of course, there's the time spent if I wanted to write it up. I only wrote about one small part, rebutting where Declan McCullagh did another hatchet-job, as only a few people were going to read what I wrote. There was much more. But I'm supposed to volunteer all the journalistic effort, likely to go to waste, just for the joy and happiness of it? I'll pass. Because: Nobody is reading (comparatively).

Of course, I could have put in the time, and then put in even more time trying to get it accepted by an editor for a large audience publication, I mean, linked by an A-lister with a large readership. From this perspective, I'm a freelance journalist doing the same grind as every other freelance journalist. With the additional disadvantage that I won't even get paid peanuts if my article is accepted. Whoopie. Am I routing around Big Media yet?

This all takes effort. Flaming is easy: "The US government has declared war on porn, the fascists, isn't this just like those Religious Right fanatics in power to fear that someone, somewhere, is having fun. But they can't win, because The Internet will defeat them through its magic anti-censorship powers ..." (with a little polishing, that would even pass as some net-pundit's commentary).

Moreover, that mass of flaming forms a barrier - who is ever going to find my diamond of journalism amid the dross of all the sounding-off? A million vanity presses do not add up to a single well-researched report. But they sure can make that report hard to find.

Before someone tries to play 'gotcha!', and says I could have written the report instead of this very message, no, this message is much simpler. I don't have to fact-check it. I don't have to take extensive notes on another person's statements. I don't have to do any research.

I dislike a temptation I see by certain interests, to dispense with all the costly, difficult, expensive work - and replace it with the cheap stuff, your opinion, your comments, rant, rant, rant. Because that's very easy and far more popular. It's similar to talk radio. National Public Radio style issues discussion is boring, so get some shock-jocks instead. The voice of the people can be a euphemism for lowest common denominator.

Anyway, as I'm demonstrating, the question isn't if nonprofessionals can do journalism, in terms of ability. It's whether they can afford to do journalism, in terms of all the costs.

More on "Belle de Jour" blog potential hoax

"The Book Club Blog" has a great collection of information as to whether the supposed "diary of a london call girl", the Belle de Jour blog, is a hoax.

I remain with the skeptics. "She" recently "said" (my emphasis):

Unfortunately for the conspiracy theorists, there is no conspiracy. I am a young woman, I have sex for money, and I love to read and write. My taste in books shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, this job affords more spare time than most. Think of Occam's razor, the principle of parsimony: what would be simpler - that I am who I say I am, and write about, or that I am a famous author living a double life, unable to tell anyone and having a joke at the expense of my agent, publisher and readers? What does bother me is the presumption that a person's occupation is a reflection of their intelligence or value to society:

Let me reframe:

"... that I am a real well-read call-girl who instantly writes award-winning polished prose, or that I am a not-so-famous author who would like to be more famous, and saw an opportunity to do so by writing a fake blog and feeding on the media appetite for sex and the Internet and blogs and selling papers via titillation and scandal?"

When this question is put forth, there's almost a lawyer-trick of deflecting the suspicion by pounding the table and accusing the skeptic of bigotry: You think prostitutes can't be smart! Sexist! Classist!

No. I think writing is hard work for anyone. And that Occam's razor, the principle of parsimony, is that an established writer claiming to be a media-attention-draw is very likely indeed, much more so than such a real person getting awards and book deals. It's just ghost-writing taken one step further, where the writer starts by creating the celebrity in the first place (rather a clever idea, in retrospect).

Given the forthcoming "Belle de Jour" book, I was tempted to suggest turning its Amazon book reviews section into a hoax-information discussion forum. But that's probably playing into the book's buzz-hype. Still, it was an appealing thought.

More on "Belle de Jour" as fake blog

Checking other "Belle de Jour" articles, I found one which argued skepticism based on a "Gender Genie", an algorithm for allegedly determining male or female authorship. Comments pointed out the statistics are unimpressive.

So I tried testing the infamous book review, the (female author) passage of text which supposedly formed the basis of the recent identity hunt.

In the results below, there's a caveat "(NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)". All book reviews were given as "nonfiction" category writing.

Words: 256

Female Score: 74
Male Score: 346

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

Amusing, when I clicked on feedback submission ( "Am I right? The author of this passage is actually ..."), the results were:

That is one butch chick.

According to Koppel and Argamon, the algorithm should predict the gender of the author approximately 80% of the time.
Accuracy Results
Am I right?
yes 129165 (63.72%)
no 73542 (36.28%)

Note coin-flipping will be right 50% of the time. So 80% is interesting, but not all that amazing. And 63%, for this implementation, seems only a slight improvement on the coin-flipping algorithm.

Testing a second review:

Words: 143
Female Score: 172
Male Score: 192
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

Testing a third review:

Words: 261
Female Score: 337
Male Score: 280

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

One out of three is bad (though granted, these are small-word samples)

So, now testing the "Belle de Jour" first month archive:

Considered as category "fiction" or "nonfiction":

Words: 1785
Female Score: 2138
Male Score: 1936

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

Considered as category "blog entry" (apparently different keywords)

Words: 1785
Female Score: 2326
Male Score: 3384

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

I can't see these results as worth much at all.

"Belle de Jour" and literary forensics

The Belle de Jour blog is supposedly a "diary of a london call girl", written by an anonymous prostitute. Given that "she"'s landed an award and a book deal, there's been (a PR stunt? interest? a journalistic pack-story?) over her identity. The funniest part is the suggestion that it's Andrew Orlowski (this falls into the class of things which if they aren't true, should be :-)). The original suspect has denied it

After reading and hearing about all this, I did a little digging myself. Now, literary forensics is harder than it looks. It's the practice of determining authorship from quirks, styles, idiosyncrasies, etc. I've played around with it, and been wrong. My speculations, which again, might certainly be wrong:

1) The "Belle de Jour" blog is a fake, written by at least two people, one starting it, then another taking over later.

2) At least the second person, the one who took over, is a journalist.

I'm more certain of #1 than #2.

Here's why - look at the use of the singlequote character. As Don Foster claimed originally, there's a style of singlequote for phrases, doublequote for conversation. But, as I've found, in the first month archive, there are NO - none - zero - singlequote usages at all. Load the archive file http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/2003_10_01_belledejour-uk_archive.html into a text editor, and search for the two character sequence singlequote and space. Nothing in the text. Now repeat the search with the third month archive file http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/2003_12_01_belledejour-uk_archive.html. Many, many, such usages (e.g.: descriptors 'It Girl' and 'double-barrelled' apply).

Now, this is the sort of observation where someone can sneer - "Look, he's talking about a quotemark, how silly!". And it can be wrong, a writer might just have a new computer, or use a new composition procedure, or something similar. But fingerprints themselves are just smudges made by oily skin ridges, and have to be interpreted with care too.

I'm not sure if there's significance that some of the line break HTML has the sequence period-space-br-tag while others just period-br-tag (no space). That's not 100% consistent, very attackable, but also suggestive of two different origins (which could be either people or procedures, note!). Also sometimes the quoting of conversation is only in singlequotes.

But that "second" person's style sure looks journalistic. It's not that a call-girl can't be literate and write well. Rather, look at it this way - between a real prostitute imagining being a journalist, and a real journalist imagining being a prostitute, which sounds more likely? Which profession is better equipped to exploit the other?

Bruce Taylor, Declan McCullagh, and "rotten little kids"

Today I attended the debate " New Media Forums and the First Amendment", featuring Bruce Taylor of the "Free Porn" department, err, Department of Justice, on one side, and Shari Steele of the EFF on the other. Aside from the deep issues of the debate, I was able to satisfy my curiosity regarding one little mystery involving Bruce Taylor (recounted with permission).

As a bit of free, unpaid, working-for-nothing, voice in the wilderness, reporting, I mean "citizen journalism", I checked with him if he had really said something a recent Declan McCullagh CNET article quoted him again as saying:

It's not personal. Taylor relishes the chance to clash with First Amendment lawyers. "Every year we'll put a bill in there, every other year, just to keep the ACLU in business," he told me a few years ago, talking about his efforts to lobby Congress. "They should send me Christmas presents instead of hate mail. I'm putting their rotten little kids through private school."

So, knowing Declan McCullagh, I asked Bruce Taylor if he had actually said it.

He responded that he hadn't said it about the ACLU, he had been joking with Declan about porn-site lawyers, and didn't mean civil-liberties lawyers. He had written a letter of apology to various ACLU lawyers explaining he hadn't meant what was reported. I asked if the letter was available. He said, without irony, that Declan had a copy, and then listed to which ACLU lawyers he had sent it (I decided not to pursue this). These events happened years ago, note (so even if the first use of the quote, at the time, could be pleaded to be honest error, the second use, now, is surely deliberate).

Frankly, this story made much more sense. Porn-site lawyers, e.g. those who represent Larry Flynt/"Hustler" personally, often do make good money. In contrast, civil-liberties lawyers, those who bring legal cases on principle, are typically very poorly paid. Bruce Taylor surely knows this (as does Declan McCullagh). Thus a putting-kids-through-private-school joke works far better about Larry Flynt's lawyers than ACLU's lawyers. So, especially given Declan, I thought Bruce Taylor's explanation had the ring of truth. Declan McCullagh's "journalism" modus operandi is to fabricate meanings more than words.

"Two-way" journalism and "Planet Of The Apes"

[Jay Rosen just wrote a long article focusing on "two-way" journalism. Against my better judgment, I wrote this comment in response]

"Journalism may be a lot more interesting once it gets interested in the benefits of going both ways."

Jay, can I ask a puzzled question, illustrating my very non-journalist perspective? Honestly, I think I'm missing something in grasping the worldview of this subculture (very foreign to me).

Does the average journalist - pre-blog, pre-Internet, pre-New-Era, pre-this-changes-everything - really ordinarily think no readers can have something to say? Something intelligent to say?

I read you. I read Jeff Jarvis. I read Dan Gillmor. Etc. I keep getting the image of a scene that would fit in the old Planet Of The Apes movie, where the sentient apes in a Council are expressing their astonishment at the existence of an intelligent human species:

"What manner of a creature is this? It talks! It expresses itself in coherent sentences! But it's still a reader. How can this be? We've never seen anything like it before. Does it do tricks? Can it be trained for more complex labor? Of course, whatever higher attributes it may have, it's still a dangerous beast. But maybe it can serve us better in the future if we carefully (always maintaining ultimate control) allow it to use more of its capabilities, at our direction."

In specific, I feel like I'm looking at an article by one of those chimpanzee factions who were in favor of the utility of the humans.

Am I wrong? Or has my long acquaintance with, e.g. the "work" of Declan McCullagh, given me a skewed perspective? (maybe that's the orangutan faction, which knows the truth, but suppresses it for their religious ends?)

Or, to turn it around completely, you're claiming yourself that journalism as a whole has *never* *before* cared what readers say? (which is the logical equivalent of your original statement!)

[Update: Jay Rosen responded, in comments:

Xian has part of the answer, Seth. Someone else who does is Tim Porter at First Draft. Follow the link to some of his better posts. My short answer is this: it's not that newspapers and journalists were uninterested in "readers" or had no contact with an alien species.

The rhetoric of "serving readers" was everywhere in the industry from the late 1980s on. The Reader was constantly invoked in journalism discussions, too, but this is different from having a lot of human contact with actual readers, listening to what they say, or dealing with what they write.

Prior to the Internet, metropolitan daily journalism was pretty insulated from readers and their complaints, let alone their ideas. You have to grasp how extreme this isolation could be. A team of journalists might work for weeks on a large story, and be pleased to get three or four letters and a couple of phone calls as their total reaction. The normal condition was to hear nothing from anybody after a story.

For hard data, there was market research that told something about readers; there was also the journalist's disdain for marketing (editing by the numbers), which led to fears of "caving in" to readers. That gaves you some sense of the factors that were operating... then.

]

Shorenstein, "Big Media" Meets the "Bloggers", and who wins

Given that I spent so much effort on the ability to make fair use of the Shorenstein Center report "Big Media" Meets the "Bloggers", I should use that ability myself for some commentary.

The strongest passage, which leapt out at me, is the conclusion, and he said it, not me (emphasis mine):

But if blogs offered "big media" a rich vein and a testing ground for potential story ideas, it in turn conferred legitimacy on the blogosphere, and provided the "bigger megaphones," as Atrios puts it, that the young medium needed to be heard. "Weblogs," Atrios observed, "still need the validation of print and television media--otherwise it's just a bunch of people ranting away on the Internet, which is nothing new."

Elsewhere:

"For the most part," Atrios maintains, "the influence of blogs is limited to the degree to which they have influence on the rest of the media. Except for the very top hit-getting sites, blogs need to be amplified by media with bigger megaphones."

And:

Many in the press and in the blog world gave Marshall credit for "pushing the Lott story to the forefront," as one observer wrote, "with more vigor than any other online pundit."58 Atrios, too, was credited by some with being "nearly as influential" as Marshall in calling attention to what Lott had said.59 But Atrios himself argues that Glenn Reynolds played a key role in elevating the story out of the blogosphere and into the mainstream. "The truth is," Atrios maintains, "if Glenn Reynolds hadn't taken a stand on this story, then no one would have considered the role of bloggers in [it]. ... It isn't because Glenn was the first or the most vocal. Rather it was because he has a big megaphone and real media connections."

Now, this is of course coming from these people:

This case was written by Esther Scott for Alex Jones, Director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, for use at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

So, considering the source, it must be noted they aren't going to produce a study hyping blog-triumphalism. But the observations are very useful to those who take "everyone's a journalist" too seriously (everyone's a journalist like everyone's a potential candidate for California Governor)

There's other great stuff, such as fascinating sections which show the psychology of "pack journalism":

O'Keefe remembers that an employee of another network "had one of their producers in their [Washington] bureau look at it and later came back and said, `No, I don't think it's anything.'" This gave O'Keefe some pause, causing him to second-guess his judgment. "I think there is something to the [notion] of pack journalism," he reflects, "of individuals believing that if something is noteworthy, ... everyone will get it. ... If they didn't all get it, then it couldn't possibly be a newsworthy item."

And the mechanics of reportorial sausage-making (emphasis mine):

O'Keefe quickly contacted Linda Douglass, ABC's congressional correspondent, who began making phone calls "to a lot of different interest groups and folks" to seek a response to what Lott had said. Douglass was "trolling for reaction," as O'Keefe puts it, which was standard journalistic practice when someone had made a possibly controversial statement. The press, Halperin notes, "is usually not in the business of saying, `Oh my God, this is outrageous,' but rather of asking someone else [to express an opinion]."

In other words, if you're a journalist, and you want to write "This is an outrage!", you don't come right out and write "This is an outrage!". Rather, you call around to the various groups you know, and see if you can "troll" someone to say it. So you can write, that in reaction to X's remark, Y said "This is an outrage!". There seems to be something wrong with a system where disguising the editorializing via a straw-mouthpiece is acceptable.

I'm reminded, to connect to a different story that has some parallels, that I've seen this as part of Declan McCullagh's technique in proselytizing Libertarianism. For example, where e.g. in the Al Gore Internet hit piece, he studiously avoided asking anyone who had actually been involved in technologically inventing the Internet, and got reactions only from right-wing and Libertarian-type flacks. No accident, he knew exactly what they would say.

Anyway, the whole report strikes me as an interesting view into the perspective of insiders as they work out how to place the new niche into the predator-prey-fodder foodchain.

Google and stupid journalism tricks ("Lies, Damned Lies, and Google")

There's an interesting taking-to-task of lazy journalism in:

"Lies, Damned Lies, and Google"
http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a1217.asp
with, sadly, a few error itself. First, some goofs:

What's more, as you might remember from December news reports, the phrase "miserable failure" for a while directed searchers to the White House home page, and "French military victories" brought up zero pages.

The "miserable failure" Google-bomb went primarily to the "Biography of President George W. Bush" page, not the White House home page. But a howler, the "french military victories" Google-bomb never returned zero pages.. The top page was a joke which claimed there were zero pages, and the punchline was the suggestion
"Did you mean: french military defeats"?

A deeper flaw which caught my eye, is that all throughout this article, many reporters don't seem to realize that a search for words without quotes, is significantly different from searching for words as a phrase, i.e. with quotes. Given several words, Google will rank highly the results with the words next to each other, returning them at the top of the list. This seem to have misled many people at to what they're doing. That is, searching hot dog is not the same as "hot dog". The former is roughly any page with the words "hot" and "dog" related to it, while the latter is the phrase "hot dog" (this is an approximate description).

So many of the number reported are utterly and completely meaningless. They don't even do the sil