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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."
In the event of such a conspiracy, I today announce my new cut-rate prices of my credibility.
For $20, I will state in any highly moderated slashdot comment that Groklaw may not be entirely correct and all sides of the issue must be looked at.
For $40, I will embed subliminal messages into comments stating that Groklaw is evil and SCO is good.
For $80, I will crapflood articles with SCO propaganda.
and for $699, I will state that I too have purchased linux liscences for my company so we don't have to worry about the legal liabilities and also, Groklaw sucks.
All Prices USD, effective date 13 Friday 2005.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
If I am elected President, I will submit a bill to Congress outlawing Maureen O'Gara!
I'm John Kerry, and I approve this message.
I'm sorry if the article offended you nuts.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
In Korea, only old people call a Slashdotting a cyber attack.
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.
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.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Read the interview. I think this man is either underqualified for the job of CEO of a media enterprise, or is pretending to be.
/. effect):
Either that, or he's purely in the business-as-in-corporate side of things and not the business-as-in-journalism side of things. If that's the case, he shouldn't have been asked to approve O'Gara's ("I decided to publish the article"), or anyone else's works, that job should go to people with editorial responsibilities.
Here's my "favorite" example of confusing statements:
In one part, speaking of Pamela Jones being a blogger not a reporter, he says "The reporter's job is to report news." In another, speaking about O'Gara's hack job, he says "I decided to publish the article. It was published because it was an accurate news story." Are you as confused as I was?
My least-favorite part, if true and I sincerely hope he's mistaken (I think he's confusing a DOS attack with the
"The reason why we decided to pull it [O'Gara's hack job] was that when the content, style and the language of the story was perceived as offensive by a group of the readers, a denial-of-service attack was launched against our entire company, interfering with all of our publications and all of our readers."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This is really chilling and scary how people can bully others into submission over one opinion piece.
What MOG did was not an opinion piece; it was, in fact, illegal. PJ is, by her own words, considering her legal options right now, but nobody has the right to a) trespass in another person's home (as MOG all but admits she did in her article, commenting on how the interior of PJ's home looks, noting she was not home at the time), b) list the addresses and telephone numbers of relatives, and c) slander another person publicly with unverified information.
I note that you're an anonymous coward so you obviously do not want us to know who you are. I wonder why?
What MOG did was beyond sleazy; it was illegal, journalistically unethical and personally immoral, and if she was silenced for that, she has nobody to blame but herself.
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.
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.
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.
The CEO is content to run a "tabloid trash" type of website, where reporters can harass and intimidate people. That answers everything.
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.
Well its rather simple. To an inexperienced sys admin a slashdotting looks identical to a DDoS.
People should keep in mind that Mr. Kircaali really doesn't have the option of fully admitting and apologizing for anything. That would just open up him and his company to a giant lawsuit.
He has to forcefully deny any wrongdoing to remove the possibility that at a later trial, a lawyer could just just hand the apology/admission to a jury and say "Here's the evidence, he admitted to it, please make them give PJ $1 (holds pinky to lip) MILLION dollars"
There's just something so cathartic about that.
Oh, wait, Forbes is still printing Daniel Lyons. Never mind.
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-- Anais Nin
I think their servers are capable of withstanding a slashdotting, as they've been listed in numerous articles before this. In order to bring down a site with that kind of infrastructure, it's got to be a deliberate attack.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
I've eagerly read this interview but as I've devoured the words it seemed to me Mr. Kircaali was becoming aggressive in his answers. Up to a point where he finally complained about his media company being DoSsed. He did put emphasis on the fact they've had experienced the biggest cyber attack in history of any media company (which, I would like to remind you, sounds like SCO words in the past).
This raised a question in my mind - what this interview was for? He did not seem to really care about the case nor he did not really excuse himself to have allowed O'Gara's article being publish.
The questions were repetitive and they never got where the reporter wanted the interview to go. Kircaali has been evasive in his answers about the topic of interest (PJ, Groklaw, O'Gara's work, etc). He was nonethelesse quite exhaustive on his report of being attacked and threatening emails sent to his customers.
It just leaves me on the feeling he is upset because he's losing a great deal of money. Someone should remind him that he decided to publish O'Gara's article.
My email ("A problem with your advertising + SYS-CON Media website") was quoted in that interview. I'd like to set the record straight on what Fuat Kircaali discussed with me. I sent out email to SYS-CON advertisers, questioning them if they knew about the article. A few hours later I received a call from him. First he was yelling at me "I want to speak with the chairman of $MYEMPLOYER" Then he started threatening to sue me. It was only then that I said I he could easily discuss this with my lawyer. Only after his verbal tirade continued, did I choose to end the conversation with him. His claim that people "needed legal counsel" is a joke. He was threatening to sue people, they no doubt replied "speak to my lawyer". Mr Kircaali treated me in a manner which I find unbecoming of a CEO / publisher. He also did not know the definition of slander/defamation either. Another legal newb attempting to intimidate people. gg.
in the immortal words of Fuat Kircaali:
...
"The reason why we decided to pull it [O'Gara's hack job] was that when the content, style and the language of the story was perceived as offensive by a group of the readers, a denial-of-service attack was launched against our entire company, interfering with all of our publications and all of our readers."
Leaving aside the incredible moral blindness of missing what was wrong with the O'Gara article, this guy admits he is willing to dump "entertaining" and "accurate" reporters because of a DOS attack. Nice guy to work for
What a piece of work is Fuat Kircaali.
Maureen O'Gara carelessly tossed the accusation that there was some Identity Theft going on, with PJ as:
A) The Victim
B) A willing accomplice
C) Herself, but not really Pamela Jones
D) All of the above, more wild accusations to come in our next mogwash piece.
Completely apart of the deliberate slurs and slants, criminal accusations make for straightforward Defamation cases.
Mr. Kirkaali says that PJ should not fear thieves, but seems blissully unaware that his own jourmalist accused Pamela Jones to be a thief, and published it on-line.
Maybe he need someone to explain Remedial Ethics 101 to him.
60 Minutes does this kind of thing all the time. It's not illegal. Its not even immoral journalism, if there's a story there.
OGara tried to figure out if there was an IBM-PJ connection, failed and published a fluff piece about PJ's car anyway. That's just crap journalism and a shitty thing to do.
As for PJ, her little internet soapbox made here a "public figure" and now she learns this has real world consequences. She basically started this nasty bitchfight with OGara, no suprise that someone bothered figuring out where she lived. (Just as groklawers did with McBride's home address and phone number.)
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.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
So is this the new trick, if you're in a situation where you kind of look like the bad guy and you're trying to deflect attention, just claim somebody DDOSed you?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
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.
If that "tabloid trash" ends up getting back to their advertisers, they aren't content to run with it. This is like ringing the doorbell and running... they get off by publishing something like this, but when it offends the public sensibilities they retreat as fast as possible.
I'm glad that they canned MOG, but talk about a lack of balls... the damage was already done. They were just tired of being called jackasses, and thought that pulling the article would stop it.
Jackasses.
Well, that's just sweet. But what does it have to do with anything?
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?
Still, not in print so why are you talking about this?
Hey! I can write this "note" and try to turn it into a free ad for my wonderful magazine.
Yep. If I ever need to find PJ's mom, I'll know the site that provides that "valuable service".
Yep. Linux Journal certainly wouldn't publish that, even on its web site. Nor any other technical publication.
Did I mention the part about turning this into a free ad?
Thanks for having me on the show, did I mention my new web site? Can I do a quick plug for it?
I'm real sure I mentioned the free ad time. Right?
End your note? You haven't even gotten to the subject.
Give us the gold and you make the rules.
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.
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:
So, PJ is "mysterious".
Maybe it stands for "Pam Jones".
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.
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
Well that makes sense, surely everyone else would be too embarrassed to call themselves an "i-technology magazine publisher".
I suppose it could be worse, they could be an "i-technology e-magazine net-publisher".
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
They don't say 110 Something Street nowdays, but 15 years ago they would park right in someone's front yard and tell you exactly where it was.
It was a smear story. However, (hypothetically) if O'Gara had found IBM pay stubs all over PJ's desk, then it would have been legitimate journalism. Therefore stalking her house was a legitimate journalistic tactic.
Here I was ready to give Sys-Con the benefit of the doubt since they fire MOG but fuck it! This interview only proves that they aren't sorry, they do NOT see the err of MOGs ways.
If MOGs story WERE legitimate and they fired MOG not because of her story but because of it's unpopularity then that too would be mucho unethical.
Throw Sys-Con and it's publications into your meat/cyber space equivalent of a kill file.
Sorry to inform you, but nobody gives a flying fuck about Mareeen O'Gara or SysCon except Pamala Jones and her thralls. (As evidenced about the 100s of groklaw articles published about those noname losers.)
Yeah, dude. Obviously.
And a lot of those fuckos feel seriously wronged and may not have one's normal moral boundries in place.
I suppose you'd like us to adopt the moral compass of an anonymous poster with a chip on their shoulder? Way to go, champ.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
I don't think anyone is really after O'Gara for trying to find PJ and have a face-to-face with her. The article (have you read the article?) is just crap, though, with lots of ad-hominem attacks, speculation, innuendo and addresses of people who may or may not be PJ and no real information of any kind. It reads like something an 8th grader would write after they got told off on-line.
"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:
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 storiesI 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.
Breakfast served all day!
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?
On top of that he says he found "nothing unethical" about the article. How could you ever trust a publication with an editor like that?
I will be checking my all of magazines for any reference to "Fuat Kircaali" or "Sys-Con Media" and not purchasing anything of the sort.
PJ has her own pointers regarding what O'Gara did over here. Her side doesn't line up with Kircaali's statement - and under the circumstances, I'd believe her first.
This sig no verb.
>>We do not make decisions on behalf of Ms. O'Gara. I'm not her boss.
I don't know much about publishing. But, I thought that controlling content was indeed the responsibility of the editor?
If I were the editor, and I saw content that included publishing the address, and photos, of the home of PJ's elderly monther; I don't think I'd publish the story. That is the responsibility of an editor, isn't it?
Also, why does a tech publisher want to publish the address of a blogger's elderly mother? How is that related to technology?
[alas, to many, the answer is yes, but I digress
Did you look behind the couch? When I lose something, that's where I usually first look.
Though I wonder if you've really lost them -- after all, the First Amendment says that `Congress shall pass no law' ... and while this has generally been interpeted as meaning that the Government shall pass no law abridging your freedom of speech, in this case, I see no law having been passed. So what are you complaining about when you ask about your First Amendment Rights?
Hers seem to be perfectly functional as well. Did she lose hers too? Freedom of the press belongs to those who own the press. You own your press, and so you have freedom of press, and you used it. What's the problem?As for the story you posted, what did you think the response would be? I'm not talking about the DoS attacks, but just the general reaction from the more `moderate' people? Did you think that people would appreciate knowing who PJ was? Was that news?
As far as the DoS attacks go, call the FBI. You should be able to assign a large dollar figure to the damage being caused, and so the FBI will probably take your complaint seriously. Nail the bastards! Seriously. I don't approve of what you've done, but you've already given yourself enough problems -- we don't need criminals adding to them with DoS attacks.
As for the rest of the world (the people who are saying that you made a poor decision, in varying degrees of articulateness), well, you made your bed -- now lie in it. I don't feel sorry for you. You may have had every right to post the story (or maybe not -- it sort of looked like a threat. But I'll leave that to the lawyers) -- but the bad will you've just gained with a signifigant portion of the community can't be a good thing.
He doesn't understand what he did wrong when he published the article, and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts he doesn't yet realize what he did wrong in the interview.
I can't imagine anyone with even a shred of a clue, when giving an interview that is almost certain to be linked to by slashdot, giving blanket permision like he did:
*Wince* What was he thinking?--MarkusQ
P.S. For the record, if I ever get interviewed and slashdot gets hold of it, I want all of you yahoos to stay the heck away from my house. My number is not listed and I will not pose for photos with you.
If you actually go through PJ's posts, she is generally very careful to insist that religious stereotyping be eschewed. Other Groklaw members and ACs have indeed debated whether Mormonism had any role, but the general consensus has been to argue that attitude down.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
*sigh*
He just doesn't get it. He thinks "Me Media! Me almighty journalist! Me do what I like! Me No apologize but call YOU moron! Worship Media!"
We think "God, what a idiot."
and they wonder why we don't trust them?
To quote Fuat Kircaali, CEO of Sys-Con:
What does ethics have anything to do with professional reporting and journalism?
What indeed. And people wonder why so many CEOs are going on trial.
This notion that being a "journalist" justifies invasions of privacy of all kinds against all kinds of people may be the straw that breaks the camel's back for most Americans, and results in reigning in press abuses. One can only hope. For my part, while I don't normally approve of DoS attacks, in this case, they were probably the only effective sanction for bad corporate behavior.
James Turner
Senior Editor
LinuxWorld Magazine
What's chilling is O'gara. It took awhile to put my finger on it, but O'gara was writing a message, not any kind of article. Think about it; there was no news value, no "facts" stated concretely, and no effort whatsoever to reach any interested reader on either side of the SCO debate. ...and accidents happen all the time. See,PJ, if I can find you, so can anyone -- especially now."
Now THAT'S chilling.
O'gara didn't write this to readers. She wrote this directly to PJ, intending to shake her up by instilling an uneasy sense of fear not only for herself, but FOR HER FAMILY. "Watch your step, PJ. You'd never forgive yourself if someone close to you got hurt. It's a dangerous world, with serial killers and all.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
Check this out! Apparently the editors got fed up.
I'm not sure there WAS any "attack". Did anybody hear about such a thing before this interview? Especially since he claims it was the "biggest DoS attack" ANY media company has suffered?
It sounds to me like this guy was claiming such in order to use the same "OSS people are wackos" claim that Laura DiDio AND MoG used.
Which is very suspicious. It tends to make me think he's part and parcel of the same SCO-loving crew since he uses the exact same tactics.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
The Other Shoe Drops
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Senior Editorial Staff of LinuxWorld Magazine Announce Resignations
MONTVALE, New Jersey, May 14th, 2005 --- The entire senior editorial staff of LinuxWorld Magazine has today announced that they will be leaving the magazine, effective immediately.
The following statement was released by the group. "We regret that Sys-Con Media has been unable to apply a standard of journalistic ethics that we can comfortably operate under. We feel that recent articles published with the consent of Sys-Con Media fail to meet minimum generally accepted journalistic codes, and because the management of Sys-Con Media has failed to acknowledge that the articles are by all informed judgment ethically unsupportable, we have decided we must find other avenues for our work."
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
James Turner
turner@blackbear.com
603-552-2020
Dee-Ann LeBlanc
dee@renaissoft.com
(604) 898-8433
posted Saturday, 14 May 2005
Instead he chose to use his time to pick nits about whether bloggers are reporters and whether the telephone numbers which were published were business or personal.
And then he launched into a lengthy diatribe about how his websites were being DOSed by "fanatics" and how people were complaining to his advertisers.
The "DOS" was most likely just a slashdotting. I know for a fact that Groklaw suffered load related problems when the "Intimidation" and followup articles were posted. Groklaw hit some kind of resource limit on comments on the "Intimidation" article, and I was seeing PHP error messages too. If Mr Kircaali saw a much higher flow of traffic than usual, for several days afterward, that would be because he didn't pull all of the Maureen O'Gara stories off his websites, contrary to his promise. There were reports that some stories had remained and my impression is that it took a few days before they were all gone. Of course people are going to reload the site frequently during this time - those who care whether SYS-CON.COM keeps its promise, and those who care whether any Maureen O'Gara stories remain.
And as for the second horn of Mr Kircaali's contention, that people were unjustly contacting his advertisers, my understanding is that the continued presence of Maureen O'Gara at SYS-CON.COM had been an issue for 6 months and Mr Kircaali had refused to terminate her for that length of time. If something's an issue for that long, of course somebody is going to escalate it. And the advertisers are ultimately Mr Kircaali's boss.
Mr Kircaali defends the practice of running Microsoft advertisements on a Linux website by asserting the absurdity of refusing to run Microsoft advertisements on a Microsoft website. This is a straw man argument; few people would complain about seeing Microsoft advertisements on a .NET website. But Microsoft is
the enemy of Linux specifically and Free Software
in general, so it is rather disturbing that an OSS
advocacy site should run their advertisements (this
includes Slashdot).
Finally Mr Kircaali closes with some choice weasel words on the issue of privacy, an unsubtle insult to Groklaw's readers ("if the majority of Ms. Jones' readers are the same people whom we dealt with this week, now I understand better why she may want to remain anonymous") and a bit of bignoting themselves as the victim: a media company who became a victim of perhaps the biggest cyber attack in history.
My opinion is, whatever the merits of Mr Kircaali's arguments, he chose exactly the wrong way to close off the matter. I doubt he has endeared himself to anybody except Microsoft, who believe they benefit by painting Linux supporters as vigilante zealots.
Are you suggesting, sir, that the world's leading i-technology magazine publisher (with 16 titles) would be unaware of a simple distinction that our lowliest crapflooder could manage? Don't be preposterous.
James Turner, former senior editor of LinuxWorld wrote Fred Brown of the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Commitee. Here is what Fred Brown wrote:
James,
I agree with you. That piece by O'Gara definitely is outside the norms of good journalism. It's bullying, insulting and harassing, and I, for
one, really don't get the point of it. That's not to say that other journalists are sometimes guilty of those sins, but that still doesn't make it
good journalism.
So I don't think you did the wrong thing in using you First Amendment rights to call for O'Gara's ouster or reprimand or whatever. The SPJ Code of
Ethics says ethical journalists should "expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media" and "abide by the same high standards to which they hold others."
Fred Brown
Co-chair, SPJ Ethics Committee
http://turner.linuxworld.com/read/1277987.htm