funsec mailing list archives
Re: press trickery of the worst kind
From: robert_mcmillan () idg com
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:07:25 -0700
Hey Toralv, I pretty much agree with you. I read a lot of stories and I agree that some journalists suck and some go the extra mile. I think there's a real issue with the mainstream media covering tech stories. They often just don't have the time to get the story really right, from a technical perspective. But still, some do an excellent job. Also, there's this real tension between writing something in the kind of non-technical terms that everyone can understand, and getting the story right. I'm not trying to make excuses here -- getting things right IS the job -- but really technically savvy sources I work with often don't understand why I can't just use a statement that's completely accurate, but at the same time completely incomprehensible to 99 percent of the population. I totally respect anyone's decision to have nothing to do with journalists. I've heard enough horror stories like Gadi's about stupid misquotes. I will point out, however, that in other cases, people are pretty quick to cry misquote and blame the journalist when they simply say something stupid and their boss is suddenly on their ass. Bottom line: I don't buy into sweeping generalizations. Why would someone suck just because they happened to be a journalist? Makes no sense. It's like any other profession: some people -- hell some stories -- are good some are not good. I guess it's just a lot more public when you're not good. Bob
Maybe you can't quote Tom with that constructed quote, but it's quite
true.
Most journalists are looking for data, "expert" opinions, basically any help to get their article right. And they are happy for any help they can get, sometimes up to proof-reading the entire article before they publish it. There are some who have their story made-up and are looking for supporting quotes only, easy to spot during the interview, simply avoiding statements that can be misquoted helps (get a good media training, it's worth it). There are few that don't care what you said and basically make up quotes or put them completely out of context. You can't do much about them, except for blacklisting, but their are capable of taking your postings to public lists like funsec and chosing only the words they like in a post to construct a quote....
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Current thread:
- press trickery of the worst kind Gadi Evron (Jul 14)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Gadi Evron (Jul 14)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Tomas L. Byrnes (Jul 15)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Dan Kaminsky (Jul 15)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Gadi Evron (Jul 15)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Tomas L. Byrnes (Jul 15)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind robert_mcmillan (Jul 15)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Toralv_Dirro (Jul 15)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind robert_mcmillan (Jul 15)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Drsolly (Jul 15)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Larry Seltzer (Jul 16)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind robert_mcmillan (Jul 16)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Tomas L. Byrnes (Jul 15)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Gadi Evron (Jul 14)
- Message not available
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Tomas L. Byrnes (Jul 15)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Drsolly (Jul 16)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind robert_mcmillan (Jul 16)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Gadi Evron (Jul 16)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind Valdis . Kletnieks (Jul 16)
- Re: press trickery of the worst kind robert_mcmillan (Jul 16)