What I Said .. NOT What You Decided To Tell Others

Earl Mardle reflects ...

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I have been a journo/ broadcaster, I have screwed up, not even intentionally, just through being dumb, and the people that I screwed up had, essentially, no recourse. Have you ever tried to make a formal complaint to a broadcaster, sheesh.

Now they, and we, don't have to wait, don't have to plead, don't have to hope; we blog, we name names, we tell our story and, where necessary, we post our own recordings of the conversation, the interactions, the emails and then we tag the post with the original title of the story and the names of the people who offended us and the topic and let Technorati and Digg and google move the riposte around so that anyone who wants to, make up their own mind.

Newspapers call the big name along the top of the front page "the masthead", they see their publication and the agendas that it carries as some kind of vessel and that ship is leaking like a seive because it was caulked with the ability to control both the message and access to the channel through which it flowed.

Gone.

Good.

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... on Terry Heaton's clarification about why the Internet has changed "reporting" for good.

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Another Big Challenge For The Old Way Of Doing Things

In a nutshell, Wired Magazine is doing a story about Michael Arrington of TechCrunch. Michael’s a lightning rod, and my guess is Wired finds this interesting. Wired wants to interview others about Arrington, including Jason Calacanis and Dave Winer, both of whom know him well.

Well, Jason and Dave want the interviews done via email, a technique I personally find increasingly useful. Wired doesn’t want that, and so the whole matter is being openly discussed in the blogosphere and eventually, one hopes, in the mainstream press.

Here’s part of what Winer wrote to the Wired reporter:

“Not generally doing interviews these days. If you have a few questions, send them along, and if I have something to say, I’ll write a blog post, which of course you’re free to quote. Sorry that’s about the best I can do.”

Here’s a portion of the Calacanis reply:

I’m an email guy like dave winer.. And I own my words as well, and often print them on my blog (after stories come out).
A wired writer who won’t do an email interview–thats ironic!
Frankly, you need to adapt. Journalists have misquoted people for so long–and quoted them out of context that many people like to have their words on record.
I don’t want someone taking half a sentence or paraphrasing me… Just too much risk.
Besides I have 10,000 people come to my blog every day–i don’t need wired to talk to the tech industry.

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