more on Coursey on IP WITH NASTY EDITORS COMMENTS dhf

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Drzyzgula <bob () drzyzgula org>
Date: September 23, 2005 10:35:55 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: Ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, david_coursey () ziffdavis com
Subject: Re: [IP] Coursey on IP WITH NASTY EDITORS COMMENTS dhf


On Fri, Sep 23, 2005 at 05:36:26PM -0400, David Farber wrote:

> He sent this to me and I disagree djf
>
> First newspapers often  do not check that well and they have
> exstensuive staff to do so.
> ...


Dave,

Mr. Coursey's article is one of the silliest and most
reactionary things I've read in a while.  I see the the
following problems with it:

  * When I received that first message, it made no
    sense to me to conclude that NPR was "censored" in
    any systematic or official sense. My first thought
    was that a local station operator had either made
    an error or, worst case, decided (s)he didn't like what
    (s)he heard. I figured that in the first option,
    there'd be an apology coming soon, and in the latter,
    there'd be an apology coming later. In any event,
    I had already listened to the program as a download
    from Audible, and knew that it was silly for anyone
    to think that the segment would -- or could -- be
    suppressed in any real sense.  The *last* thing I ever
    would have thought was that this was a fact-checked,
    verified truth.  My experience with your list is such
    that I imagine that the vast majority of your readers
    would react with similar skepticism. This was a raw,
    first person report, nothing more.

  * The thing that impressed me the most about the
    incident, though, was the quickness with which
    authoritative reaction came in. I recall saying to my
    wife, who I had told about the initial report, that
    this was the most remarkable thing about your list --
    the ability it has to reach the people at the core of
    so many of these stories. I can recall several other
    examples of this; Intel's reaction to the reports of
    DRM embedded in new processors comes to mind. This
    does *not* mean, however, that I consider any of
    these things settled. I know -- and believe -- what
    NPR and the TAL folks had to say about it, but none
    of it directly explained with any certainty why this
    specific incident occurred, just as I still don't think
    I really know for sure what's going on with DRM in
    Intel processors, although I'm pretty certain that it
    is not as nefarious as the initial reports suggested.

  * As far as I can tell, the only remedy to the problem
    that Mr. Coursey appears to see is to roll back the
    clock at least twenty years. I'm not sure when your
    list started (the archives start in 1993) but I know
    that Peter Neumann's Risks Digest started in 1985.
    This form of information exchange has been well
    established for decades. The days of journalists as
    gatekeepers to the current events information flow
    are long gone, and I'm shocked that Mr. Coursey has
    only just noticed.

  * An email list, even a moderated one such as yours
    and Mr. Neumann's, is fundamentally different than
    a newspaper, magazine, or even an online, edited
    journal. I think that one of the most important
    differences is that, although it is delivered to
    many subscribers like a newspaper, it is in effect
    a conversation among the subscribers in a way that
    the older forms of media can never be.  What you are
    delivering is *not* "The Dave Farber Report".

  * If Mr. Coursey wants a target for his scorn, he really
    should have no trouble finding one within the more
    traditional media. For example, on the same day as the
    censorship story was being discussed, you also carried
    a discussion of a report of UK food donations being
    incinerated.  This story came from, of all places,
    a *newspaper*, presumably one subject to editing and
    fact-checking.  But no, this too was quickly shot down
    by your readership.  I just looked, and that story is
    *still* on The Mirror's website, and I see no sign of
    any corrections -- to any stories (admittedly I didn't
    look that hard, I'd love to be corrected on this). Thus
    -- and this is far from the first example of this --
    your list is providing a mechanism by which readers
    can get corrections to stories appearing in more
    traditional media. The yellow journalism practiced by
    The Mirror is as old as gossip and is still all too
    common today. It is being delivered to a eager and
    credulous public via every available broadcast channel
    -- television, magazines, newspapers, Internet, and
    every radio band from shortwave to satellite. Perhaps
    Mr. Coursey should do some complaining about *that*.

--Bob Drzyzgula



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