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Dvorak on the LinuxWorld Fracas
An anonymous reader writes "John C. Dvorak has entered the fray, offering his opinion on the O'Gara LinuxWorld flap. From the article: '...the Linux community is slowly evolving into a state of mob rule, with the cheerleaders being paranoid crackpot leftovers from the waning days of Amiga.' "
He is right! When Linux gets even headed and even handed people at the helm across the board, things will move in a direction more positive to the masses.
Gregor
What is a privacy "violation"? Is that like a parking violation? A 3-second violation in basketball?
Or are you saying it's illegal? If illegal, please cite the relevant statute.
Also, hasn't the "tech community" (aka the good guys) also published personal information? The DiDio flap comes to mind and I fail to recall oodles of people rallying that her privacy had been violated. It seems more like a case of having one's cake and eating it too.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
It's funny how Dvorak waxes nostalgic about "the olden days" where there was no journalistic integrity. Can he really possibly be saying outloud that he wishes journalists were actually less ethical?
I think 'ol John has a future job Fox News, or perhaps a technology version of Crossfire! Here's some news John, lack of ethics in journalism is RAMPANT today. Every other week there's some scandle of reporting. The bad 'old days are today, and I'd love nothing more than a technological equiv of Jon Stewart to skewer you like he did those pig-fuckers on 'Crossfire!'.
AccountKiller
The cases of MoG and Jayson Blair are fundamentally different from events surrounding Rather's resignation or the retraction of the claims in the Newsweek article. Rather and Newsweek ran stories about events that were based on fact- that is they actually happened in the real world- while MoG and Blair just MADE STUFF UP. MoG carried it a step further and engaged in ad-hominem attacks on the subject of her reporting- behavior that is totally unprofessional, uncalled-for, and possibly actionable.
As the Gannon/Guckert insanity shows, it's OK to make stuff up and pass it off as fact, as long as it's an echo chamber for whatever Rove told McClellan to say. MoG's strategic failure isn't that she's reporting lies as fact, it's that she doesn't have a bunch of religious whack-jobs employed by ClearChannel to repeat her lies as if they're the truth. She does have a network of MS apologists and astroturfers who copy/paste her specious claims, and Dvorak is one of those guys.
The media has 3 audiences, and are held accountable to two masters: the audiences are (1) sheep who believe what they're told, (2) people who are willing to read past the headline and actually question the news being presented to them, and (3) the people who made the news happen and want to see it reported a certain way so (1) and (2) can know how cool/important/rich/dangerous (3) is living. The masters are (A) the corporate entities who sign the paychecks, and (B) to a much lesser extent, the news-reading public composed of (1) and (2) who vote with their eyes and dollars.
The problem with news in this country today is that group (3) and group (A) are increasingly the same people, using the news media to influence the opinions of groups (1) and (2). We have a name for this kind of media communication- it's called advertizing.
Or marketing. And when you see an ad, the important questions to ask are: "who is paying for this?" "What are they selling?" and "how much did this ad cost?" So those are the questions I (and I think many other folks who have had opportunity to appreciate what PJ is doing with Groklaw) would like to ask MoG, preferably after a subpoena and under oath.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.