Is aged news better than fresh?
The New York Times let Jason Jones of The Daily Show in for a visit. The results are quite telling. Check it out here.
I’ve certainly talked about how far newspapers have fallen, and I know the clip is heavily edited. But the question about aged news, and the reaction it generates are, well, priceless.
Also funny? “Look at me! I’m a reporter from the 80s!”
That line killed me.
This guy threatened to kill me.
I was outside my office Friday, testing out a video camera, the last time my life was threatened.
As I swept the lens across the streetscape, a shirtless “gentleman” rode his bicycle through my field of vision. I didn’t even notice him. He asked if I was pointing a camera at him. I turned off the camera. What followed was a string of expletives aimed at me, including this gem:
“If my picture shows up on the Internet, I will hunt you down and I will kill you.”
Awesome.
So, here’s the offending video:
I don’t put this up because I want to be hunted down or, indeed, killed. I do, however, want to clear up a few misconceptions this gentleman, and many others as well, have about privacy. I’ll go through his argument point by point. I will leave out the curse words.
1. “It is illegal to point a camera at someone without their permission.”
Wrong. I can legally point a camera at whomever I’d like. Furthermore, most of us are caught on camera several times a day, at stores, street corners, gas stations and ATMs. Consent is not necessary.
2. “This is an invasion of my privacy.”
Wrong again. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy on a public street. That’s why it’s called public. If I want to, I can take your picture and run it anywhere I’d like — on the front page of a newspaper or magazine, on my website. I can’t use it in ads or commercials, but as many newspapers do, I can sell prints of your image. The copyright holder — the guy with all the rights — is me.
Want to know something that will bug you even more? It’s entirely legal for me to take pictures of you in your house! If I can see you from the street, I can take your picture. I’m not allowed on your property, but if you happen to be washing your unmentionables in front of your livingroom picture window, you’re fair game.
3. “I’ll call the cops and have your camera confiscated.”
Wrong. There is a clause in our Constitution that protects against illegal search and seizure. My property cannot be taken from me without either a warrant or “probable cause.” If the police have no reason to believe I’ve broken the law, they cannot detain me, search me or take my property without my consent.
4. “We’ll see what my attorney has to say about this.”
No we won’t. Perhaps you will hear what he has to say, but I believe you’ll be sorely disappointed. And I doubt you’ll want to fill me in when your lawyer tells you to get out of his office.
If I seem a little bent about this, I apologize. I don’t mean to sound rude. It was, however, more than a little upsetting to be treated that way. I explained to him that I wasn’t using the footage for anything, that I was only testing the camera, and that I planned to throw the footage away. I even explained that I didn’t actually intend to film him — he rode through my shot. None of those things mattered, though.
So, I have thrown out the rest of the footage. I am, however, preserving the bit above for posterity.
Way to go, guy. Hope it was worth it.
Why the New York Times has it wrong. Again.
Yesterday, the New York Times continued its attempts to dismiss blogs by posting this story. I’ve linked to it, but basically the story used the recent news from Gizmodo and TechCrunch that Apple was in late-stage acquisition talks with Twitter to illustrate how irresponsible bloggers are.
The assertions are that neither website cared whether they were reporting the truth — they just blasted out a juicy rumor in attempt to get hits. The inference here is that the New York Times — and print journalists everywhere — are more responsible, and are more likely to sit on a story until they have all the facts.
I spent a bit of time yesterday looking at various blog posts and opinions on the piece, but I didn’t see anyone point out the two most glaring problems.
Problem no. 1: Despite protestations to the contrary, the Times and every other mainstream media outlet knows the goal is always to get the story first, to the best of your ability. News has a way of fleshing itself out with time. How many times do we see stories — even in the Times itself — that are filled with speculation and unnamed sources? When I worked as an editor, one of my rules was that we did not use anonymous sources. Ever. The Times doesn’t adhere to that policy, yet insists we can believe everything we read from its pages has been checked, double-checked and found entirely factual.
Have we forgotten Jayson Blair?
It wasn’t too long ago that Blair’s body of work was proved plagiarism. The Times couldn’t even root out the lies on his resume, let alone the whoppers he was allowed to print. Print journalism is filled with such instances: Stephen Glass, Rick Bragg, Jack Kelley, Janet Cooke…
And those are big time print “journalists.”
On top of that, let’s not forget that just a few short months ago, the Times was attacked for its reporting on Caroline Kennedy’s failed Senate bid.
So, the Times chooses to pick on two websites for reporting on a rumor (both sites made clear that they were reporting the existence of a rumor and both made attempts to prove or disprove the rumor), and flat-out states that neither site cared whether it was true. In so doing, the Times itself chooses to ignore the truth.
Problem no. 2: The Times doesn’t want you to know the little deals mainstream media makes to get the “whole story.”
The release of the Palm Pre and the news surrounding it actually falls in quite nicely with this story. News agencies across the country were given review copies of the Pre a couple of weeks in advance. Journalists were briefed about the phone and allowed to use it — on the condition that they didn’t say anything about it until release time.
Such agreements are known as “embargoes” and “non-disclosure agreements.” On a recent cnet podcast, the hosts blasted the Boy Genius Report blog for breaking the embargo and releasing a review of the Pre before the embargo date. Such practices, they argued, destroy sources’ faith in the news agency. And if sources can’t trust news agencies, those news agencies won’t get early access to the products or information.
That’s a problem.
Embargoes do not exist for the benefit of readers, but for the benefit of sources. In most cases, including the Pre, the embargo exists so the product will get the biggest bang for the buck, exactly when the manufacturer wants. In my newsrooms, embargoes didn’t exist. We wouldn’t agree to embargoes because they were untruthful. I would not allow a source to tell me when to print a story.
My first boss in journalism gave me this rule to live by: If you have a piece of information, it is never in the public good to keep it to yourself.
Only once in my career did I hold a story at the request of a source — and that was in an ongoing murder investigation, where the release of the information I had would undermine the case. Had I published a story about who the murder suspect was, there would be no confession. I understood that clearly. Holding back a product review only helps a source.
I also don’t buy the argument that consenting to an NDA gives you time to write a better review. If your goal is to write a good review, take the time after the product launch.
–
The Times really went out of its way to lambaste the blog world. But theirs is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Unfortunately for the Times, we’ve come far enough to recognize that journalism is a good ole boys network that proudly pats itself on the back for every accomplishment and stares down haughtily at its readership.
And all the while we’re getting our news, up to the minute, on Twitter instead.