{"id":189111,"date":"2010-05-21T09:41:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-21T14:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/05\/21\/journalists-protecting-their-own\/"},"modified":"2010-05-21T09:41:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-21T14:41:00","slug":"journalists-protecting-their-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/05\/21\/journalists-protecting-their-own\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalists Protecting Their Own"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an otherwise ordinary article<\/a> about how former Googlers in the Obama White House continue to talk with current Googlers, we have the following exchange:<\/p>\n

In January, for instance, Google’s vice president and “chief Internet evangelist” Vint Cerf anxiously wrote to McLaughlin about the worsening chances for net neutrality — the notion that Internet Service Providers should be barred from favoring their own content or from offering “fast-lane” services to premium-paying customers. “Has there been so much flack from the Hill that you guys feel a need to back away” from a commitment?, asked Cerf, attaching a CNET article by a well-credentialed business consultant who was advancing that thesis.<\/p>\n

“Don’t be silly,” McLaughlin responds. “No one’s backed away from anything. . . . Isn’t . . . the author of the article, an anti [net neutrality] zealot?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, he is,” Cerf wrote. “Just wanted to confirm he’s full of biased baloney.”<\/p>\n

“Absolutely,” McLaughlin replied.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you go through the article, you will never see that name of the journalist in question, Declan McCullagh, who was best described as a “Draw by crayon libertarian<\/a>,” by the inestimable Andrew Orlowski of The Register<\/span>.<\/p>\n

I deduce it from the Clues, “CNET,” “anti [net neutrality] zealot,” and “Biased Baloney,” if you are familiar with McCullagh’s oeuvre.<\/p>\n

What is almost certain is that if the principals in this story were talking about a statement by a lawyer given to over-the-top statements, (Geoff Feiger, for example) you would have seen the name in the story.<\/p>\n

It’s not in this story, because it is seen as inappropriate for a journalist to call out another journalist by name, even in the context of a quote someone else.<\/p>\n

This attitude is corrosive to journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an otherwise ordinary article about how former Googlers in the Obama White House continue to talk with current Googlers, we have the following exchange: In January, for instance, Google’s vice president and “chief Internet evangelist” Vint Cerf anxiously wrote to McLaughlin about the worsening chances for net neutrality — the notion that Internet Service …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1067,974,997,1129,985,1025,1173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communications","category-hack-journalism","category-internet","category-journalism","category-regulation","category-technology","category-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}