Free Software Mag Interviews Sys-Con Publisher

NW writes "Tony Mobily, editor of the Free Software Magazine recently interviewed Fuat Kircaali, founder and publisher of Sys-Con Media. The interview revolves around the recent controversy surrounding the article written by Maureen O'Gara attacking Pamela Jones of GrokLaw."

Comments

Re:A Chilling Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

An opinion piece is something that lists the name of her mother (not PJ) and also gives a street address along with pictures of the outside of where she lives? Get real.

O'Gara's piece was an attempt at a smear job by painting PJ as a crazy elderly Jehovah's Witness. Those in the SCO camp/pro-SCO people must be incredibly desperate to be resorting to tactics like that.

He still doesn't get it

[Locke2005]

If somebody published an article with names and addresses of my family members, as well as a description of my car and the inside of my apartment, I would certainly interpret that as a threat, just like the old "We know where you live!" cliche. In fact, I would attempt to have the author and publisher charged with a hate crime, since I am in a bi-racial marriage, which people have been killed for in the past! There is a thin line between free speech and threatening speech; Moron O'Gara crossed it.

Not much for an apology

[heli_flyer]

From reading the article, apparently it's not the complaints from the readers, nor the complaints from the advertisers which prompted him to pull the articles. The only reason he pulled the article is the DDOS attacks. He still doesn't seem to understand what he did wrong.

Re:Not much for an apology

[HorsePunchKid]

Exactly. It's not an apology at all. It's like running over someone in a crosswalk and then saying, "I'm sorry you didn't get out of the way quickly enough." Fuat Kircaali does not believe even in the slightest that there was anything ethically questionable about the article, or he wouldn't have run it.

Pathetic. Anything for some extra traffic, I guess. They certainly got more hits from me than they ever have in the past. At the expense of never getting any more in the future, though. I hope it was worth it, Fuat!

What an ass

[instantkarma1]

To paraphrase..."There was nothing ethically or morally wrong with the story. It was factual. However, many of our idiot readers.....errr..customers, got their panties in a was about it. I see no problem publishing personal attacks against people, including their physical address and making fun of their religion, but I'll be damned if some of our readers aren't prudes."

This guy is absolutely classless. I think I'll pass on anything put out by them in the future.

MOG did not know it was the *right* PJ

[One Louder]

Even in the "article" itself MOG admits that she didn't know for sure if she had tracked down the actual PJ, and even implied that this "Pamela Jones" might have been the victim of identity theft.

Given that, why plaster the address and pictures of a potentially innocent party across the Internet?

What about the mother? She's not a party to Groklaw in any way, she's not a blogger, a reporter, or anything, yet her address and pictures of her house ended up in the "article".

I'm sorry - I see nothing ethical here.

Re:A Chilling Effect

[gvc]

Here's the Letter to Readers by LinuxWorld detailing the standards of journalism that O'Gara contravened.

Among them stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, or social status.

Shameful

[ChaosDiscord]

So the publisher admits that he pulled the article not because it was ethical, but because he was being DOSed. So they first lack the ethics to realize that publishing someone's home address and the address of their elderly mother is wrong, then bend over when attacked. That's shameful. This publisher has shown that he fundamentally does not get it. I strongly support his first amendment right to publish that article, but he's still a sleazebag. I'll be avoiding the entire SysCon family of magazines as I can't trust them to do good journalism.

Re:I thought Slashdot was against hate crimes...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I used to disagree with "hate crime" laws but then I realized their point. Yes, most people don't commit violent crime because they love their victim. But that's not the point.

The purpose of Federal hate crime legislation is to give the Federal government authority to go in and investigate should the local enforcement NOT do his/her job because said prosecutor, police and justice agrees with the crime because they too hold those prejudices. There are places where a crime against blacks or gays might not be thought of as a biggie and swept under the rug. In most cases, I wouldn't like encroachment of federal power, but it IS a human rights issue and at this point, the local justice system would be broken so someone needs to step in.

Big time.

[khasim]

From TFA:

The "editorial board members" of LinuxWorld are appointed from among the leading professionals and participants of the Linux community at large.

Well, that's just sweet. But what does it have to do with anything?

LinuxWorld's independent advisory board and the core editorial team(s) have full editorial decision-making authority in everything that goes to print.

But MOG doesn't appear in print. Her articles are posted on your web site.

So what does anything about "print" have to do with this story?

They funnel that passion into the accurate and unbiased editorial content that you look for in the pages of our magazine(s) every month and in every new issue.

Still, not in print so why are you talking about this?

We believe that a magazine such as LinuxWorld, supported by hands-on participants and leading industry experts, offers real-life editorial content that you will not find elsewhere.

Hey! I can write this "note" and try to turn it into a free ad for my wonderful magazine.

Our compensation and deep satisfaction is in knowing that we are providing a valuable service that benefits Open Source, Linux, and everyone in the industry.

Yep. If I ever need to find PJ's mom, I'll know the site that provides that "valuable service".

This is how LinuxWorld differentiates itself from other venues.

Yep. Linux Journal certainly wouldn't publish that, even on its web site. Nor any other technical publication.

On the pages of LinuxWorld you read articles written by the most knowledgeable and experienced professionals in the world.

Did I mention the part about turning this into a free ad?

Last but not least, we are pleased to announce that with the launch of our new Web site, we now made all our archived content and past issues available online.

Thanks for having me on the show, did I mention my new web site? Can I do a quick plug for it?

Please be sure to take a look at the "LinuxWorld Topics" section of our new Web site to explore our archived content grouped under a rich number of categories.

I'm real sure I mentioned the free ad time. Right?

Before I end my note, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you our publishing guidelines.

End your note? You haven't even gotten to the subject.

We believe in the Golden Rule.

Give us the gold and you make the rules.

In all our dealings we strive to be friendly and courteous, as well as fair and compassionate.

This was not a single article. Read the past ones. You'll see an ongoing stream of hatred.

But those were okay to put on your sites.

We treat sources, subjects, and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect. We show compassion, show good taste, and avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.

Hmmmm..... You might need to check this page then - http://linuxbusinessnews.sys-con.com/read/49228.ht m?CFID=39636&CFTOKEN=75BBE516-14D5-139B-BC4011A448 3558B3

Yep, Linux Business News on the sys-con.com site. And if I may post some of the hate there:

Whatever you think of his politics, McBride may have a point or two. How come such an influence peddler is so mysterious?

So, PJ is "mysterious".

The name PJ is apparently a nom de plume or, in this case maybe it's a nom de guerre.

Maybe it stands for "Pam Jones".

Re:A Chilling Effect

[bernywork]

No, not quite, 60 Minutes doesn't turn around and say at 110 something street, you will find this. That's the boundary that got crossed, if they said "In this apartment block in downtown Missouri" or whatever it was, that wouldn't be going to far. To publish the information on the internet of someone who obviously wanted to keep their personal life out of what they do professionaly, that's the step too far.

Also the information was unverified. The whole thing to me sounds like a smear story, no matter which way you look at it.

Re:Interview summary:

[Anonymous Coward]

the story was perceived as offensive by a group of the readers

I'll never purchase any publication by them again. Doesn't sound like there's much understanding there about the difference between right and wrong. Instead of a believable apology, we're presented with weasel-words.

That's how publishing tends to work

[PCM2]

In the trade press, and probably even newspapers though I have no firsthand experience there, you generally have two arms of the company, which we might call "church" and "state."

"Church" is the editorial department. The head of an editorial department is the editor-in-chief.

"State" is the publishing side. This is where all the marketing, advertising, sales type stuff happens. The head of the publishing side of the business is the publisher. Typically the publisher does not get a direct say in what goes into the magazine. He can object, but what the editor-in-chief says goes. In a well-run operation, the publisher might get a lot of say in what goes on the front cover of a magazine (because you can consider the cover a marketing vehicle as much as it is an editorial one) but that's about where it ends.

The role of CEO is trickier. Doubtless this is a business position. Probably the role of the CEO has more to do with preserving a brand identity for the book through its editorial content. The CEO is probably not all that involved in the day-to-day operations of choosing which articles to publish and which not to publish. He probably does get some say in the matter, though; so, if there's a problem, he probably goes and yells at the editor-in-chief at 4pm on a Friday afternoon and everybody needs to bust ass over the weekend to fix things.

Anyway -- in a well-run publishing outfit that has not compromised its journalistic integrity, the "church" and "state" sides are separate (which is why people tend to call them that). And to tell you the truth, I have no reason to believe this isn't how it is at Sys-Con.

When O'Gara's article was published, who raised the stink? The editor-in-chief of LinuxWorld. Sounds good so far; it's his job to meddle in content. But how did it get published in the first place? Because the editor-in-chief of LinuxWorld doesn't have oversight over it. If O'Gara's content was published as part of a normal publishing structure, perhaps he would. But apparently, according to what Mr. Kircaali says, it is Maureen O'Gara who has oversight over what she publishes. Sys-Con merely "syndicates" it, meaning she basically gets a rubber stamp from Kircaali and nobody even bothers to read it. And I quote:

Maureen does not act directly on behalf of SYS-CON or anyone else. She is the owner of her own company, G2 Computer Intelligence. She is not a staff reporter of SYS-CON. We have been syndicating her LinuxGram newsletter for more than three years. ... We do not make decisions on behalf of Ms. O'Gara. I'm not her boss.

So, to Mr. Kircaali: You're quick to put down blogs, but how is what Ms. O'Gara does any different, if there's no editorial oversight? If nobody's her boss, nobody decided what she should or should not write about, nobody has oversight over her stories ... then what's that, if not the same thing as blogging?

I think the reason this guy's answers come off so terribly is that he's really not used to being in a position to defend editorial content. He's a business guy. He gets content, he syndicates it on the Web. Certain content goes out without the backing of an editorial department or the oversight of any staff editors? Great! All the cheaper. Well, now it's come to bite him in the ass and he really doesn't know what to say about it, except that he wishes it would all go away and he could go back to running his business.