LinuxWorld Senior Editorial Staff Resigns

sachmet writes "In light of the interview with Fuat Kirccali, James Turner has announced on his blog the immediate resignation of the LinuxWorld senior editorial staff." From the post: "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."

Comments

Honesty

[ninthwave]

It is nice to see some honesty and morals in the mess that journalism has become.

It is sad that it took this mess for it to be shown.

I wonder if slashdot might be hiring or its parent company might have a home for these people. Even if it is just for PR purposes.

Re:Honesty

[capt.Hij]

When Turner first acknowledged problems with the O'gara article he used some weasel words and stopped short of apologizing. I was critical of him and his staff, but now he has really stepped up to the plate and did the right thing. It will certainly be a costly action on his part, and he has shown a lot of class and integrity. I was critical of him before, but I was wrong.

Kudos to a group of people who made a difficult decision and did the right thing.

Re:Honesty

[tyllwin]

If PJ really is a little old lady who lives modestly, and who's a member of the Jehovah's Witness sect, there's nothing wrong with publishing that. THAT gives insight into a public figure. If the phone number listed in the article was truly obtained from an old news release, then that too would be ethical, if tasteless.

But, public figure or not, publishing people's home addresses is outside the generally accepted practices of professional journalists. Sarcastic commentary and personally identifying information about about elderly relatives is outside the generally accepted practices of professional journalists. Mocking their religious choices and age is outside the generally accepted practices of professional journalists.

Doing so with obvious spite is calculated to increase people's disgust.

I doubt you'll find many highly visible examples of the home addresses, phone numbers, elderly relatives, and religious affliations of the SCOX attorneys being publicized and mocked. People are justified in being angry that PJ has been subjected to that -- just as SCO's attorneys would be justified in thgeir anger if it were done to them.

Re:Honesty

[Trailer Park Boy]

"If Daryl McBride's personal information had been published (and it seems like at some point it was, although I can't find the story now), everyone would be cheering the public's "right to know."

M'oG went to PJ's mother's home, harrassed her, and then published her address and photos of her home on the Internet. No one did anything like that to any SCOX board member, and if they had, the linux community's name would have been dragged through the mud in the media. There's only one possible reason for publishing PJ's mom's personal info, and that's "We know where you live" style intimidation, pure and simple.

Re:Honesty

[LarsWestergren]

[...] the simple fact is that PJ stepped up and made herself a public figure in an extremely controversial case. And there is no constitutional or guaranteed right to remain anonymous.

Public figures deal with this kind of poking and prying all the time. Celebrities deal with paparazi. Politicians deal with people digging into every nook and cranny of their life. Innocent, ordinary people who are thrust into the spotlight have all sorts of private details published and pored over.

As others before me have pointed out, there is a big difference between tabloids and reputable newspapers and magazines. I never read tabloids, I find them disgusting stupid garbage. Now, I believed Sys-con to be a company that dealt with serious journalism, but it seems I have been proven wrong. Therefore I have cancelled my subscription to Java Developer Journal.

and to claim her story was a gross violation of journalistic ethics is a biased response. (The Google cache of her story is still available. If you haven't read it, read it yourself.)

I HAVE read it, and it was a breach of journalistic ethics. If you think my opinion is biased, ask Fred Brown, co-chair of the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Commitee:

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

If Daryl McBride's personal information had been published (and it seems like at some point it was, although I can't find the story now), everyone would be cheering the public's "right to know."

Yes it was, I have seen it posted on Slashdot by ACs on serveral occasions. Guess what, it wasn't cheered as the public's right to know, it was modded down to -1 on all occasions I saw, and people who replied and said that this was wrong tended to be modded up.

If you choose to put yourself in the spotlight, you can expect to have the press breathing down your neck. You don't have to like it but you might as well get used to it. It's a part of American life. It's the obverse side of the "freedom of the press" coin. Would you really prefer to live in a place where the press is constrained?

I believe you are presenting a false dichotomy here. You essentially say: Either we are against freedom of the press and pro-censorship, or we should shut up about this case. I haven't seen one post here advocating censorship. We are expressing our own DISLIKE of these tactings, and say that we choose to not buy Sys-con products in the future. Big difference.

Apart from these things I agree with your article. Foul tactics should always be fought against. You must be careful that you don't become the thing what you hate.

Re:uhhh....

[cranos]

Long story short, well known anti-FOSS journalist posted article that was seriously devoid of journalistic ethics as well as attacking the maitainer of the Groklaw blog.

Editorial staff demanded article be withdrawn by the publishers other wise they would walk. Article was pulled as well as all other articles by original author.

Head of publishing company gives interview basically saying the only reason he pulled the articles was due to a threat of a DoS attack. Otherwise he sounds very much like he supports original author in her attack on Groklaws maintainer.

Senior Editors get pissed at latest example of publisher not getting concepts such as ethics or integrity and decide to show him what they mean.

Dee-Ann LeBlanc's resignation

[TimCrider]

http://dee.linuxworld.com/read/1278292.htm

Ex Linuxworld editiorial staff

[backslashdot]

These people who resigned because of their willingness to stand by their morals are welcome in my home any day.

If I owned a publishing house I would hire them immediately.

The total is now 3

[VGPowerlord]

Steve Suehring has also resigned:

It is with some sadness that I've had to resign from LinuxWorld Magazine. Over the past nearly two years I've worked with a group of people with whom I've developed a great rapport and friendship. We were unpaid editors but we devoted a lot of time and energy to it nonetheless. It was a great experience for me and I look forward to other opportunities as they arise.

I may edit this post in the future and add more details.

Re:In a Linux magazine you can't say...

[Pharmboy]

You need to do a little more research. Anyone can say anything negative about Pamela at any magazine. Publishing personal information for the sole purpose of inviting stalkers is not news or commentary, its predatory and unethical.

I don't always agree with Pamela's point of view, but I don't publish mom's address to invite harm to her.

Ten Ethical Principles

[dark-br]

If only more journalists follows principles like this we would have a better media:

1. Define a set of values
2. Tell the truth
3. Respect human dignity
4. Recognize the complexity of human nature
5. Be distrustful of unchecked power.
6. Foster a diversity of views
7. Challenge "group think."
8. Take time to listen and to think.
9. Encourage criticism and self-examination
10. Correct mistakes

Have a look at a brief description of each of them.

Re:Honesty - Sys-con Advertisers list

[Anonymous Coward]

Talking of who is endorsing who, here are the people to complain to and/or boycott. This is to save you from having to go to the sys-con site yourself. More will be added as I (or you) find them.

First letter capitalised for easy sorting. Alphabetical order. Product advertised where mentioned. No links to avoid giving further adverts.

Please be polite and clear when contacting, not angry. Please only do so where you have a real existing or potential business relationship with the company which you are able to cut off or otherwise influence. Please remember that these companies may have already cut off contacts with sys-con and simply their adverts have not yet been removed.

Arkeia / Enterprise Backup Software
Barracuda Networks / Spam Firewalls
Chrystal reports (XI)
Embedded Systems / PDA Sync Software
Forum Systems / XML security of some kind
Fusion Ware / Integration Server
Google (ads by google)
IT program management / office best practices
Infitech / X5 NAS
Jboss (JEEE application server)
Microsoft
Netop remote control
Networld Interop / conference
Oracle
Oracle technology network
Parasoft automated software error prevention(tm)
Quadbase
Qualcomm / Qcamera (SymbianDJ)
Quest software / Jprobe suite
Sleepycat software / Berkley DB Java Edition
Sun / Java Studio Creator
Sybase
Tenable / Network Security
TruePosition / Location based services
Wily technology
XSL Maker / XSL IDE

Details on LinuxWorld DoS

[swsuehr]

As an editor (now former editor) for LinuxWorld, I've been attempting to get details of the DoS against Sys-Con all week and bring them to our readers. Just yesterday I received those details and was working on a story about the DoS to appear in LinuxWorld. Since I don't think the story will be appearing there, it's now here. From TFA: "There is still some doubt over whether the DoS attacks against Sys-Con actually existed or whether they were the result of 'The Slashdot Effect' for lack of a better term. I believe the DoS attacks did exist. I too was initially skeptical but based on e-mail correspondence I now believe them to have happened." More in my blog.

Unfair comparison

[Mr. Underbridge]

I'm no fan of O'Gara. But she's no worse than scores of other reporters out there, and to claim her story was a gross violation of journalistic ethics is a biased response.

Well, you seem to be mixing tabloid and news journalism in your examples. Maureen claims to be an actual journalist, not a Papparazza. If she were to get a job with the National Enquirer and publish pictures of PJ next to Bigfoot, OK, fine. But the key is that most certainly isn't journalism.

But this was getting passed as real journalism along with material that actually is real journalism on LW. What Marueen did is NOT journalism. It was a personal attack. It wasn't professional. For instance, you won't see anything like that in the NYT or WSJ. For someone who claims to be a journalist, that was reprehensible.

The response to this piece by many zealots has been much more unethical than the publishing of the article. I realize that the response, in particular the DOS and threatening email, is attributal to only a small minority of OSS and Linux supporters, and that many of the leaders in the field have spoken out against them. But the denial of those actions has been almost perfunctory. We should be screaming about those who smear the Linux and OSS name with illegal and unethical attacks at least at the same volume we're screaming about O'Gara and Sys-Con.

That's not unethical, it's flat illegal. Not to split hairs, but I don't see it as unethical because the people doing it don't claim to have a code of ethics. To me, revenge in kind isn't necessarily unfair. I agree it's a bad idea because the OSS community is fighting an uphill PR battle anyway, and fighting it against someone with a media outlet isn't smart. But to continue my prior point, that ain't journalism either.

If you choose to put yourself in the spotlight, you can expect to have the press breathing down your neck. You don't have to like it but you might as well get used to it. It's a part of American life. It's the obverse side of the "freedom of the press" coin. Would you really prefer to live in a place where the press is constrained? There are those reading Slashdot who do, in fact, live in such a place. Ask them which is preferable.

Again, ethics vs. law. I don't think anyone's calling for overturning of the 1st Amendment. People are criticizing Maureen, not the law. What Maureen did wasn't illegal. It was certainly unethical as a journalist, though not as the hack Paparazza that she is.

I basically get what you're trying to say, but I think you can be objective and still be nauseated by what she did as someone who claims to be a journalist. Thankfully, she finally made it much easier to discredit her, which to me made that article a bonehead move on her part.

Re:What the hell is LinuxWorld?

[mcappel]

Hi Josh,

I was the editor of LinuxWorld in the IDG.net era. IDG licensed the title and content of LinuxWorld to Sys-Con in the summer of 2003 for a period of five years.

Sys-Con's business model is interesting, or at least it was in 2003 when I spoke to the company about continuing with LinuxWorld. None of the editors for any of Sys-Con's publications or Web sites are paid. Neither are authors.

The business model of relying on volunteer editorial seems to work because a) it's cost effective if your objective is low CPM, and b) Sys-Con seems adept at finding people willing to work for exposure, c) advertisers and readers don't seem to mind that the editorial product is assembled in this manner.

I did not choose to stay with LinuxWorld when the transfer occurred.

Mark Cappel