I hope your reply is supposed to be satire, but that is completely irrational. By your logic, a company should focus on making as little money for its shareholders as possible. If you TRULY think that it's greed for a company to make as much money as it can, I assume you also turn down salary increases if they're offered to you. Surely it would be greed to make as much money as YOU can. Right?
Why is it greed for a company to move its headquarters to a place that will take less money from them in taxes? If the company can still do everything it needs to do for its shareholders in the new location, it would irresponsible for it NOT to make the move. The company's purpose is to maximize value for its shareholders, not passively sit around and hope to send more money to the U.S. government.
I know that a lot of people have accused Halliburton of wrongdoing on other issues, but this issue is completely unrelated to those charges. The previous charges seem to be a bit vague at times, and I don't have any opinion about them one way or the other, because I don't know the facts. But on the issue of saving money on taxes by moving an office, the company is completely justified in making the move. I would recommend any company do the same thing under similar circumstances.
I misread the headline on the summary. I honestly thought that it first said that the "keynote offers hope for PlayStation's 3 fans." I'm not a gamer, but I figured things must be even worse for Sony than I'd realized.:-)
I was trying to give you credit for just letting your emotions get in the way of your ability to reason, but I see I've overestimated you. You're clearly a bigot who doesn't think other people are entitled to certain beliefs which you don't approve of. You're so blind with hatred for this guy and his views that you can't see that his economic arguments are relevant to what he's saying in this case. And in case nobody has mentioned this before, you're not the arbiter of what is acceptable to discuss in a Slashdot thread.
The fact that a poster is consistent about making an argument you disagree with does not make it spam. The fact that he doesn't have academic qualifications in an area doesn't necessarily make him wrong. You clearly just don't like the guy and don't agree with him, so you don't want him expressing his views. What he said here was completely appropriate for the context. It's your irrational attack on him that is out of place. The fact that you're willing to say that someone shouldn't discuss things simply because you don't approve of his expertise says more about you than it does about him. You seem to be letting your emotions and disagreement with the poster get in the way of your ability to reason, at least in this case.
Why are you attacking the poster? He's making cogent points in a very clear way. If you don't agree with hm, fine, but your personal attack is off-base and stupid. You're just revealing that you're too shallow to use reason to oppose what you obviously disagree with. You're making his argument look even stronger by comparison.
You're exaggerating to say that 35 percent of the market uses something other than IE. As a Safari user, I'd certainly like more people to use anything other than IE, simply because it forces sites to pay attention to cross-platform compatibility. But IE still controls something like 80 percent of the market.
Maybe, but I find that many people DO take this objection quite seriously, in two different ways. Some people argue that people buy Macs because the like "pretty machines" and aren't interested in anything beyond that. Others still argue that there's no software for Macs. (I still hear that ALL the time.)
Some people might find this funny, but the comment is stupid and untrue. It's never been true. Using a Mac has always been more about the software than the hardware. For some reason, a lot of people don't get that. The vast majority of people who use Macs buy the hardware because of how the software works, not the other way around.
You are simply spouting your opinion -- based on nothing in particular. If you'd like to read up on journalistic ethics and how they've changed (and continue to change) because of the wasteland called "TV news," then we could have a legitimate conversation. But you don't even have a basis for having an opinion, yet you assume that your unsupported opinion has as much validity as that of someone who's been there and done that. I don't have time to give you an education in journalism, and I have no patience with someone making assertions (as fact) when he doesn't know what he's talking about. The evolution of "news as entertainment" is making ethics a much tougher matter in modern journalism (especially on the TV side), but you don't know about where it's come from or the current problems. We don't have a basis for an intelligent discussion, especially since you're asserting uninformed opinion as fact instead of trying to learn something.
Journalists use judgment about what is fair and reasonable, especially when they don't know the facts of a case. CNN clearly made the decision that this wasn't a fair statement to allow when the facts weren't known and Maher was NOT in position to know the facts. That makes sense. And this clearly wasn't a case in which the information is time-sensitive. If it truly matters, there's plenty of time to go out and do a story about it, although most people still believe that a story about someone's sexual orientation (or sexual affairs) is out of bounds unless it directly impacts on the story at hand. If Mehlman were directly making statements about public policy toward gays, that might make it relevant, but there's wasn't any such situation to make it relevant or timely.
As I said, if you find a mistake or something which violates your standards, you change it. Period. What is difficult to understand about that. Even books are sometimes changed in subsequent editions when errors of fact or judgment are made. This shouldn't be a complicated (or controversial) concept to grasp.
You can argue all day about how YOU think journalism ought to be. I'm telling you how it IS -- and I'm telling you that it's just reasonable and responsible editing. If you catch a mistake or violation of your standards, you fix it before it goes out again. Period. When the industry decides that it wants you to rewrite the rules of ethics, I'm sure you'll get a call about it.
Contrary to popular belief, the opinions of Slashdot readers has darned little to do with whether something is true or not, especially on fields outside of IT. Slashdot readers' judgment about journalism is probably just about as accurate as journalists' knowledge of writing code.
I think you'd find that Mehlman would lose such a lawsuit, even if it's not true. I'm sure you could get a lawyer to take the case, but it wouldn't ultimately be successful unless the Supreme Court changed its existing interpretations. If I were CNN, I have no legal worries about this, just ethical ones. Of course, one never knows for sure how courts will eventually rule, but I feel confident about this one. Since this will almost certainly never go to court, we'll never know. Besides, if the statement IS true, it wouldn't matter what the intent is, because truth is an absolute defense against libel/slander charges.
I'm sorry, but you clearly don't understand journalism. There are BILLIONS and BILLIONS of "facts" out there. One of the key jobs of a journalist is to decide which are news and which aren't. This is simply a responsible editorial decision. Millions of these are made by reporters and editors every day. A tiny fraction of what goes on in the world can get into newspapers or on the air. Journalists have to decide which things are worth reporting and which aren't (and which accusations are fair to allow). Of course, if Maher wants to make the same statements on his own show (or buy an ad to say these things), he's perfectly welcome to do so, as far as CNN is concerned.
You're mistaken. It's not even slightly unethical to delete a portion of something if you catch a segment which your ethical standards should have caught the first time. It's called editing. It's done all the time, and it's very legitimate.
Actually, with the evolution of Supreme Court decisions starting in the mid-'60s, someone who is a "public figure" pretty much can't win a libel or slander suit. Starting with the decision in N.Y. Times vs. Sullivan, the court has given very broad protection to statements about public figures, even if they're not true. Basically, you have to be able to prove that the person who made the statement KNEW he was lying and that the statement was made with malice. (I'm slightly oversimplifying, but that's the bottom line.) It's pretty much impossible to prove those things, because a liar merely has to claim that he believed the statement to be true, and he'll eventually win. It's not fair, but libel/slander rules have been seriously liberalized on the assumption that it's worth it in order to advance discourse about public affairs.
To me, this case is merely about ethical responsibility, not legal protection.
A responsible journalist would ignore the existence of the book about Hillary Clinton unless it became a big enough issue to cover. The existence of the book itself shouldn't be news. The Haggard story was reported because it was directly impacting an ongoing election that was relevant at the moment AND because the source was a primary source (the guy who says he was having sex with Haggard). It wasn't somebody with an agenda making a charge that he didn't have first-hand knowledge of.
You don't seem to have any clue about the way journalism works. There is WAY more information out there than ANYONE can possibly absorb. One of the key roles of a journalist is to collect information and then decide which is worth reporting.
Being irresponsible can attract ratings. I haven't said anything about that. You're confusing the issue. Being responsible sometimes makes you less controversial and less exciting. Many of the things you're talking about from Fox News are irresponsible, because that network made a decision from the beginning to push the limits of journalistic integrity. It's worked for them in the ratings sense, but it doesn't mean they are responsible journalists when they're doing those things.
Slashdot Mirror
I hope your reply is supposed to be satire, but that is completely irrational. By your logic, a company should focus on making as little money for its shareholders as possible. If you TRULY think that it's greed for a company to make as much money as it can, I assume you also turn down salary increases if they're offered to you. Surely it would be greed to make as much money as YOU can. Right?
David
Why is it greed for a company to move its headquarters to a place that will take less money from them in taxes? If the company can still do everything it needs to do for its shareholders in the new location, it would irresponsible for it NOT to make the move. The company's purpose is to maximize value for its shareholders, not passively sit around and hope to send more money to the U.S. government.
I know that a lot of people have accused Halliburton of wrongdoing on other issues, but this issue is completely unrelated to those charges. The previous charges seem to be a bit vague at times, and I don't have any opinion about them one way or the other, because I don't know the facts. But on the issue of saving money on taxes by moving an office, the company is completely justified in making the move. I would recommend any company do the same thing under similar circumstances.
David
I misread the headline on the summary. I honestly thought that it first said that the "keynote offers hope for PlayStation's 3 fans." I'm not a gamer, but I figured things must be even worse for Sony than I'd realized. :-)
David
I was trying to give you credit for just letting your emotions get in the way of your ability to reason, but I see I've overestimated you. You're clearly a bigot who doesn't think other people are entitled to certain beliefs which you don't approve of. You're so blind with hatred for this guy and his views that you can't see that his economic arguments are relevant to what he's saying in this case. And in case nobody has mentioned this before, you're not the arbiter of what is acceptable to discuss in a Slashdot thread.
David
The fact that a poster is consistent about making an argument you disagree with does not make it spam. The fact that he doesn't have academic qualifications in an area doesn't necessarily make him wrong. You clearly just don't like the guy and don't agree with him, so you don't want him expressing his views. What he said here was completely appropriate for the context. It's your irrational attack on him that is out of place. The fact that you're willing to say that someone shouldn't discuss things simply because you don't approve of his expertise says more about you than it does about him. You seem to be letting your emotions and disagreement with the poster get in the way of your ability to reason, at least in this case.
David
Why are you attacking the poster? He's making cogent points in a very clear way. If you don't agree with hm, fine, but your personal attack is off-base and stupid. You're just revealing that you're too shallow to use reason to oppose what you obviously disagree with. You're making his argument look even stronger by comparison.
David
You're exaggerating to say that 35 percent of the market uses something other than IE. As a Safari user, I'd certainly like more people to use anything other than IE, simply because it forces sites to pay attention to cross-platform compatibility. But IE still controls something like 80 percent of the market.
= 0
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid
Maybe, but I find that many people DO take this objection quite seriously, in two different ways. Some people argue that people buy Macs because the like "pretty machines" and aren't interested in anything beyond that. Others still argue that there's no software for Macs. (I still hear that ALL the time.)
David
Some people might find this funny, but the comment is stupid and untrue. It's never been true. Using a Mac has always been more about the software than the hardware. For some reason, a lot of people don't get that. The vast majority of people who use Macs buy the hardware because of how the software works, not the other way around.
David
That news article was from two days ago. Check out what happened since then: http://www.techliberation.com/archives/041383.php
You are simply spouting your opinion -- based on nothing in particular. If you'd like to read up on journalistic ethics and how they've changed (and continue to change) because of the wasteland called "TV news," then we could have a legitimate conversation. But you don't even have a basis for having an opinion, yet you assume that your unsupported opinion has as much validity as that of someone who's been there and done that. I don't have time to give you an education in journalism, and I have no patience with someone making assertions (as fact) when he doesn't know what he's talking about. The evolution of "news as entertainment" is making ethics a much tougher matter in modern journalism (especially on the TV side), but you don't know about where it's come from or the current problems. We don't have a basis for an intelligent discussion, especially since you're asserting uninformed opinion as fact instead of trying to learn something.
David
Journalists use judgment about what is fair and reasonable, especially when they don't know the facts of a case. CNN clearly made the decision that this wasn't a fair statement to allow when the facts weren't known and Maher was NOT in position to know the facts. That makes sense. And this clearly wasn't a case in which the information is time-sensitive. If it truly matters, there's plenty of time to go out and do a story about it, although most people still believe that a story about someone's sexual orientation (or sexual affairs) is out of bounds unless it directly impacts on the story at hand. If Mehlman were directly making statements about public policy toward gays, that might make it relevant, but there's wasn't any such situation to make it relevant or timely.
David
As I said, if you find a mistake or something which violates your standards, you change it. Period. What is difficult to understand about that. Even books are sometimes changed in subsequent editions when errors of fact or judgment are made. This shouldn't be a complicated (or controversial) concept to grasp.
David
You can argue all day about how YOU think journalism ought to be. I'm telling you how it IS -- and I'm telling you that it's just reasonable and responsible editing. If you catch a mistake or violation of your standards, you fix it before it goes out again. Period. When the industry decides that it wants you to rewrite the rules of ethics, I'm sure you'll get a call about it.
David
Contrary to popular belief, the opinions of Slashdot readers has darned little to do with whether something is true or not, especially on fields outside of IT. Slashdot readers' judgment about journalism is probably just about as accurate as journalists' knowledge of writing code.
David
I think you'd find that Mehlman would lose such a lawsuit, even if it's not true. I'm sure you could get a lawyer to take the case, but it wouldn't ultimately be successful unless the Supreme Court changed its existing interpretations. If I were CNN, I have no legal worries about this, just ethical ones. Of course, one never knows for sure how courts will eventually rule, but I feel confident about this one. Since this will almost certainly never go to court, we'll never know. Besides, if the statement IS true, it wouldn't matter what the intent is, because truth is an absolute defense against libel/slander charges.
David
I can't tell whether you're an idiot or a troll, but you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
David
You are very mistaken. You have no clue what you're spouting off about.
David
I'm sorry, but you clearly don't understand journalism. There are BILLIONS and BILLIONS of "facts" out there. One of the key jobs of a journalist is to decide which are news and which aren't. This is simply a responsible editorial decision. Millions of these are made by reporters and editors every day. A tiny fraction of what goes on in the world can get into newspapers or on the air. Journalists have to decide which things are worth reporting and which aren't (and which accusations are fair to allow). Of course, if Maher wants to make the same statements on his own show (or buy an ad to say these things), he's perfectly welcome to do so, as far as CNN is concerned.
David
You're mistaken. It's not even slightly unethical to delete a portion of something if you catch a segment which your ethical standards should have caught the first time. It's called editing. It's done all the time, and it's very legitimate.
David
Actually, with the evolution of Supreme Court decisions starting in the mid-'60s, someone who is a "public figure" pretty much can't win a libel or slander suit. Starting with the decision in N.Y. Times vs. Sullivan, the court has given very broad protection to statements about public figures, even if they're not true. Basically, you have to be able to prove that the person who made the statement KNEW he was lying and that the statement was made with malice. (I'm slightly oversimplifying, but that's the bottom line.) It's pretty much impossible to prove those things, because a liar merely has to claim that he believed the statement to be true, and he'll eventually win. It's not fair, but libel/slander rules have been seriously liberalized on the assumption that it's worth it in order to advance discourse about public affairs.
To me, this case is merely about ethical responsibility, not legal protection.
David
A responsible journalist would ignore the existence of the book about Hillary Clinton unless it became a big enough issue to cover. The existence of the book itself shouldn't be news. The Haggard story was reported because it was directly impacting an ongoing election that was relevant at the moment AND because the source was a primary source (the guy who says he was having sex with Haggard). It wasn't somebody with an agenda making a charge that he didn't have first-hand knowledge of.
David
You don't seem to have any clue about the way journalism works. There is WAY more information out there than ANYONE can possibly absorb. One of the key roles of a journalist is to collect information and then decide which is worth reporting.
David
What you mean is that you've heard rumors which you assume are true. That's not the same thing as knowing FACTS.
David
Being irresponsible can attract ratings. I haven't said anything about that. You're confusing the issue. Being responsible sometimes makes you less controversial and less exciting. Many of the things you're talking about from Fox News are irresponsible, because that network made a decision from the beginning to push the limits of journalistic integrity. It's worked for them in the ratings sense, but it doesn't mean they are responsible journalists when they're doing those things.
David