Single-play DVDs a Hoax

psy writes "Ed Bott's blog states that in relation to a previously posted slashdot story "a hoax can spread just as fast as a genuine news story. That's the lesson from the bogus story published in an obscure UK business magazine yesterday that claimed Microsoft is about to unleash a new single-play DVD format. Paul Thurrott reprinted the story without giving credit to the original source. Bink.nu picked up the story from Paul and reprinted it verbatim. Techdirt commented on the original story, with attribution but without any fact-checking. So did John Walkenbach. The funny part? There's no truth to the story. None whatsoever. In fact, the original story sparked a flurry of e-mails around Microsoft as people in different groups tried to figure out where on earth this story came from. After the head-scratching stopped, a spokesmen told me, they concluded that the story was not true. "It appears to be confusing an existing feature within Windows Media DRM that allows for single-play of promotional digital material. This has been an option for content owners to use for some time for the Windows Media format - it does not apply to MPEG2 content found on DVDs."

Comments

All the more reason to check sources

[Infonaut]

I can understand bloggers screwing it up, but Thurrot, for all his annoyances, is supposedly a professional journalist.

phew

[the-amazing-blob]

I'm very glad that this was a hoax. It's a total waste to make disposable dvd's. Major environmental hazard, since no one would dispose correctly. Unless they also used the biodegradable (did I spell that right?) stuff I read about a while ago.

In Soviet Russia, hoax spread you!

You're just realizing it now?

[CyricZ]

I find it's difficult to trust any "journalist". Take the complete failure of the journalistic trade before and during the ongoing war in Iraq, for instance. That's proof enough that the vast majority of journalists aren't qualified to perform their job.

Unlike engineering or medicine, for instance, there is no penalty for those journalists who fail to do their job properly. The complete lack of accountability had resulted in most mainstream newspapers, magazines and television news programs being nothing but farcery.

Where's the Slashdot retraction or apology?

[CanSpice]

Given that Slashdot was one of the "news" sites that perpetuated this myth, why aren't we seeing any kind of retraction or apology from the Slashdot editors that they screwed up in not fact-checking, especially on the original story? Would it be so hard for one of them to amend that story with a link to this one saying "sorry, this report isn't true"?

Re:Crap Journalism

[Punchinello]

Factual errors are always going to happen. Humans make mistakes. Thurott published a story as fact with no sources. This is just as bad as making up a story. The Times fires people for making up stories.

Re:Not quite a hoax

[LeonGeeste]

Yeah, it's called a trial balloon. Look it up. Let me make it easier for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_balloon

They send out a press release with plausible deniability to see how their PR would suffer or improve if they took a certain action. Now they know it's a bad idea, and they don't have to go through the trouble of sticking their necks out, too. Politicians do this all the time.

It's a shame really. The single-use DVD merely gives people an additional option. You can buy the DVD for $20, or buy it for a single use for $3. All those who would pay $3 for a single use but not $20 for the full DVD now suffer, and those who buy normal DVD's are unaffected.

Good job guys.

There are still reputable journalists

[Infonaut]

Just dispense with TV if you want to find 'em.

The New York Times has had its problems, but their reporters are some of the best in the business, and while there is an editorial slant, it isn't extreme. The Atlantic provides good monthly material, and The Economist does so on a weekly basis. Those are my picks for daily, weekly, and monthly news, but there are other sources. The Christian Science Monitor is a great daily paper, for example. You may agree or disagree with my picks, but the profession of journalism isn't dead, and good sources of news are available.

I would also advance the notion that just because the editorial bias of a newspaper is disagreeable to you doesn't mean that the organization is corrupt. Newspapers are run by people, and people sometimes make mistakes. Note that during the runup to the Iraq invasion, The Atlantic provided excellent coverage and made many warnings that the Administration's plans were misguided. To me that is proof that following only one news source is a bad idea. You have to read from more than one source, whose biases you know, and make your own assessments from there.

I realize that it's de rigeur to bash on the news media, whether you're attacking from the Right or the Left, but the media is a business, and it gives people what they want. Americans need to take responsibility for at least some of the sorry state of our media. We have consistently voted in politicians who allowed the media conglomerates more and more power. We watch trash like Fox News. We read USA Today. That's not proof of a lack of credible journalism. It's proof that we're lazy.

Re:Not quite a hoax

[Buran]

Oh, it's "such a shame" that there's one fewer way to fill landfills with this crap, there's one fewer way to use polluting manufacturing processes to make this crap, when we can make stuff that isn't artificially limited?

Give me a break. Thumbs down to you.