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CES Ditches CNET After CBS Scandal Over Dish's Hopper
An anonymous reader writes in about the latest fallout from CNET's parent company, CBS banning Dish Network's hopper from reviews and award lists. "The Consumer Electronics Association has not only today bestowed its Best in Show title upon the same Dish Network product that started this whole mess in the first place — in the same release, the group says it will no longer work with CNET. CES has enjoyed a long and productive partnership with CNET and the Best of CES awards,' said Karen Chupka, the CEA's senior vice president for events and conferences. "However, we are concerned the new review policy will have a negative impact on our brand should we continue the awards relationship as currently constructed. We look forward to receiving new ideas to recognize the 'best of the best' products introduced at the International CES.""
The company had zero integrity before the Dish scandal happened. Why would anyone work with them in the first place? Weren't their scammy download site and payola-based game review sites damning enough already?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
How do you like them apples, CBS?
I had a sucky sig.
I didn't say it wasn't censorship. I said it wasn't the Streisand Effect. Those are 2 different things. The Streisand Effect implies censorship, but censorship doesn't imply the Streisand Effect. The Streisand Effect had absolutely nothing to do with this story.
Business relationships color the news for all outlets; even NPR and PBS now have "sponsors." About 10 years ago I was watching I think CNBC when RFK Jr. started talking about poor environmental practices of GE, the parent company. The hosts actually shushed him and they immediately cut to commercial. When they came back, RFK Jr. was gone...
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
They may not have believed that no one would learn Dish Network existed, but i'm pretty sure the intent of blocking the award was to prevent endorsing it and advertising it further. Now however more people know that the geeks at CNET wanted to give the product an award than would have known if the management at CNET had just kept their mouths shut and let Dish Network have the award in the first place.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
"Kind of like how some refuse to shop at Walmart, Chick Fill-A, or other companies because they don't like their corporate practices."
Dubious analogy: It would be more like a restaurant critic being ordered not to praise Chick Fil-A's food because Zagat doesn't approve of them.
The story here isn't that CBS dislikes the Dish Hopper; but that the alleged 'journalists' at Cnet have neither the editorial independence nor the integrity to act in the interests of their customers instead of their owners.
From the Wikipedia page:
The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.
Isn't that exactly what happened? CBS didn't want the product to earn the award (thus giving it greater recognition and popularity), so they told CNet not to grant it the award, thereby causing extra press attention focused on the product.
If that's not enough to sway you, how about an article from the guy who is widely recognized as starting the phrase "The Streisand Effect", where he also says that this is an example of the effect?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130111/00145421637/just-how-dumb-is-it-cbs-to-block-cnet-giving-dish-award.shtml
by Mike Masnick
Hello Streisand Effect. There were approximately one gazillion articles this week about products coming out of CES, and the place was wall to wall with journalists -- probably half of whom were coming up with their own "best of" lists. Most people were completely saturated with CES stories and would barely glance at such a story. Except... now, tons of people are suddenly finding out about this awesome Dish DVR, the Hopper with Slingbox.
I think that when the guy that coined the phrase calls it the Streisand Effect, you pretty much have to go with what he says.
I wouldn't have heard about this award if they hadn't tried to censor it. I seriously doubt I'm the only one. Hence Streisand Effect.
I know this is way off topic and I will try and bring it back on in the end... No promises though...lol
It always amuses me the kerfuffle raised when sports athletes get caught using performance enhancing drugs yet people don't say shit about beauty pageant contestants who have had cosmetic surgery just to win those titles.
It all comes down to "follow the money". It is the same with this C/Net / CBS / Dish story. Follow the money. To CBS Dish is cutting off a revenue stream it sees as essential. Dish is seen by them as cheating the system just as much as Lance did. Dish OTOH doesn't see ads as essential since their service is subscription based. So much like Lance, they don't think they did anything wrong.
How's that for trying to bring it back?
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
In other news, the Confederation of Companies that Rely on Acronyms starting with the letter C (C-CRAC) has revoked the CES's membership for siding with a "D" company that doesn't even understand the value of an acronym over its fellow "C" members. C-SPAN will be carrying live coverage of CNET's appeal.
It would be like Dice killing a positive story about Monster on /.
I read the title 5 times and still have no fucking idea what it's about.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
A multi-channel DVR with a commercial skip feature. I'm guessing the latter would be the part CBS hates so much.
Not sure how long ago it happened, but I became aware of CBS's complete lack of journalistic standards when Dan Rather tried to scuttle the Bush campaign with forged documents.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I need sleep because it looked like "The CIA surrounded CES since seeing CNET on CBS and served seven scientific sequestrations so somebody sensing a sacking stalls statistical scribes."
It wouldn't be a bit damning to their case. CBS would simply have to tell the judge "CNet has editorial independence".
The current situation is far more damning.
At least one did exactly that. It didn't stop them from pursuing the approach they did.
The Bush defense is old and played out. The OP never said anything about defending Bush. Just that CBS flat out lied to discredit him on a specific issue.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
This isn't s freaking law of physics, it's an Internet meme. It's meaning is what people say it is, and everyone except you seems to say otherwise.
> you still want to defend George W.
When did I say anything of the kind?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
>you're a right-winger.
Not everyone fits into one of the two boxes in your tiny little mind, sunshine.
Like any other Libertarian, I'm no fan of GWB, and as it happens my distaste for the current teleprompter-in-chief is due to his failure to reverse any of Bush's power grabs.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I totally respected you until the "teleprompter" reference. The teleprompter screaming is totally asinine.
Bush couldn't even use a teleprompter. He READ his speeches out of a 3 ring binder. Go look one up!
There is tons criticize Obama for that aren't imagined or silly. You can do better.
I think the space of a post on Slashdot is a little too small to rattle off the shortcomings of Obama.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I think I can clarify something here.
The knowledge of the existence of the Dish Network Hopper wasn't being censored.
The knowledge that it has WON best in show by CNET is what was being censored.
And possibly the actual fact of the winning itself was being overruled for corporate reasons, not legitimate technical ones.
So from that perspective - Streisand Effect.