Robert Cringley on Slashdot Editing Jane's

cjs writes "In Robert Cringley's latest Pulpit he talks about the news media's inability to deal well with technology stories, and in particular states that he feels the approach that Jane's took is `an interesting idea, but ultimately flawed'." Update from RM: Salon also had something to say about Jane's & Slashdot.

Comments

the problem

[Suydam]

The problem is, that as a group, 'Slashdot readers' aren't really all that smart. There are plenty among us that ARE super-smart...but seperating the wheat from the chaffe is pretty damn hard...and the only way to do it is to be knowledgable in the first place.

Not very specific

[DreamerFi]

Before we fall all over Cringley, please notice that he doesn't really specify why, exactly, he thinks it's flawed. You might try to read between lines and conclude stuff, but please, don't. I'd love to see him expand on his statements, and I suggest /. invites him to do so here, but before that happens, breathe, count to ten (backwars, in hebrew) before you post.

-John

did he actually read any of the discussion/article

[revnight]

i wonder if cringely (whoever's writing the column now, anyway) actually bothered to read the original version of the article in question.

cringely makes it sound as if it was some sort of treatise, or even news, about cyberterrorism developments. what it was (or seemed to me, anyway) was a simple piece grasping at the general idea.

no points to cringely on this one...if rule one is 'if you're going to print the news, print the news,' then surely rule number two is 'read what you write about.'

besides...how on earth can anyone make a judgement about how well this model will work before the article actually comes out??

-derek

A Type of Peer Review

[_J_]

It seems to me that Janes' submission to slashdot was almost a type of peer review. An article/paper was submitted to Slashdot for review for commentary. It was only after some very valid points were made that the editors of Jane's decided to write a new article. They are still the journalistic entity in the equation. This community just happens to have some independent observers who aren't afraid to share their opinion(as well as several people who probably shouldn't:) and only Jane's has control over content.

IMHO, of course

J:)

Slashdoy Bylines

[TBone]

Janes didn't come to Slashdot to find Experts; nor did they want some "cheap proofreading" as Cringley seems to indicate. Johan J Ingles-le Nobel happened to be familiar with Slashdot, and knew that, in general, we are a widely knowledgable group. We are not the de facto go-to group for information on Cyberterrorism, or Journalistic standards, or even how to run websites (Not that you don't do great Rob). But, over all, with the large number of people from differing backgrounds that come here and contribute to the community, we're a pretty good source of information.

Cringley seems to think that Janes came to us because they were lazy. I don't think so; I think Johan recognized a poorly researched article, and wanted to bounce it off of as many people with in as short a time as possible. So he came here. If Mt. Cringley would have read the rest of the second Janes article, he would see that they were, in addition to pulling information from here, planning on contacting people who are experts.

We're not the Encyclopedia Cyberia by any means here at Slashdot, but we do make a pretty good peer review board

Journalism v.s. hot air

[substrate]

I feel so dirty, this is the first Cringley column I've read since the last time he was mentioned in slashdot. This guy is the Rush Limbaugh of the technology circuit, thats the persona he's trying to generate.

So, does he have a point? Yup, he does, he says: "You have to do it the best that you can then take the heat,", unfortunately he then continues on that "censorship of the nerdarati is still censorship" without going into why offering an enlightened opinion is censorship.

The community on slashdot was no different than any other source. Jane's enlistment of slashdot was just an unusual means of getting technical expertise. Jane won't be posting the entire thread complete with the usual slew of "First post", "Malda sucks", "Cyberterrorism is [cool|bad|yellow]", they'll be carefully selecting pertinent opinions and statements. That's journalism.

Cringley's point of view seems to be: Blurt out your opinion, apologize later. Wonderful, except that Jane's tries to keep a good reputation. If they do this then they're spending reputation. It's no different than if their books on military hardware maintained that Canada had orbiting launch platforms capable of launching creme pies at any government official.

Polling slashdot was only one way that they could've gotten the expertise. They could've talked to security consultants which would've been a more mainstream way to go.

What Cringely didn't get...

[jht]

I could see his point in a "general market" publication, but Jane's is a specialty publication aimed at a very detail-oriented crowd. Cyber warfare is not a subject that most people understand yet, so Jane's turned to an audience that was likely to have a lot of real experts, and submitted it for (essentially) peer review. Upon peer review, the paper did not stand up on it's own, so it was canned.

What's interesting here is Jane's response, publishing an article composed of the best and most insightful of the comments on the original paper. That's different. But the peer review concept is as old as the ages.

What we need to be aware of here, as well, is that by the standards of Jane's knowledge, even script kiddies are security experts. That's not a knock, it's just to point out that they aren't up to speed on this subject yet.

- -Josh Turiel

What is he thinking?

[Stormgren]

As someone else in this discussion mentioned, Jane's isn't about news, but about information.

I fail to see the censorship Cringely seems to be perceiving ("...You have to do it the best that you can then take the heat, because the censorship of the nerderati is still censorship. ..."). Who said anything about censorship? I took the process that Jane's used to be more of a "peer review" process, (not that I'm *accusing* Slashdot of being quite up to that standard yet) whereby they verifed their results against the potentially more knowledgeable community. I have to ask, what is wrong with getting it right the first time you publish an article not "...That's why newspapers make corrections..."?

A rebuttal

[jd]

1. An opinion, freely given and freely accepted, is NOT, and can never be, censorship. There are no strings attached, no penalties for declining a given view, no demands to reject differing views... Nothing that could be remotely considered "censorship", in any way, shape or form.
2. "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story" is a good quote from the mainstream press. But that's all it should ever be. A quote. "Good stories" may sell better than the truth, but if I wanted to read fiction, I'd buy a comic or a scifi novel. If I want to know what's going on in the world around me, I =hope= I can turn to the broadsheets and the peer-reviewed journals. If I can't, they become nothing more than expensive comics, without the artwork.
3. Slashdot was not asked to "peer-review" the story, or write a new one. It was asked for opinions (if any), the same way any other person asking a question on Slashdot does.
4. The first rule of Real Journalism is to check your sources. If "Janes" concludes that the sources on Slashdot are reliable enough, and of high enough quality, to be usable as the foundation for an article, that is THEIR decision to make, not Cringley's, or anyone else's.
5. The original article had nothing to do with CT and "Janes", once realising this, would have had to replace it with something. They have an excllent reputation, and you don't put that at risk just to appease a particular writer.
6. "Janes" is NOT a newspaper. It is NOT a news service, intended to rival "The Daily Post" or "The National Enquirer". If a comparison needs to be drawn, it should be nearer "Nature", or some of the IEEE publications. At the very least, "Scientific American".
7. Cringley seems to be very hostile to just about everything. I've read a number of his articles, over time, but they all seem to be negative. I can't remember a positive article from him. Whilst I will continue to take each article as it comes, I'm going to add a lot more skeptisism towards what he says, from now on. A habitual cynic is not necessarily useful to listen to.