What do Maureen O’Gara, Gavin Clarke, Ingrid Marsen, and Michelle Delio have in common? I’m not sure, but what they don’t have in common are fact checkers.
It was little surprise to read that Sys-con Media won’t be running articles by Maureen O’Gara anymore. I’ve never read an article by her on a subject I have personal knowledge of which I would personally characterize as anything other than a screed filled with opinions, gossip, and outright lies. Her stories on the open sourcing of InterBase back in 2000 were perhaps the worst articles written on the subject by anyone purporting to be a journalist. She’s out of a job now not because she did something worse than usual but because she happened to pick a target that Slashdotters care about.
Not to defend her in any way, but I can see why she might feel her "reporting" is all right. After all, I’ve seen The Register make up not just individual quotes but the entire premise of their article. Ingrid Marsen "reports" that a Borland patent is holding up Wine without bothering to ask Borland for comment. Danny Thorpe notes that it’s hardly unusual for companies to allow open source projects to use their patents for free. But that requires, you know, asking.
Meanwhile, MIT Technology Review, InfoWorld, and Wired retracted stories by Michelle Delio after discovering that the sources she cited frequently couldn’t be confirmed.
I guess if your revenue stream comes from ad clicks then skimping on journalism and pandering to people’s prejudices can be a profitable business model.
{ 3 } Comments
Amen.
And to think the so called professional Journalists are critical of Blog fact checking.
I think the standard of journalism in general is pretty low these days. Ever watched Fox News?
What makes the whole situation disgusting is firstly the way personal information and insults can be so readily published as "news" and then how the publishing company who approved the article and indicated that they found nothing wrong with the article, all of a sudden says "To Our Valued Readers: (May 13, 2005) - Our syndication arrangement with
LinuxGram has recently ended after ethical questions raised by our readers in
one of the articles published in last week’s issue. I agree with their view on
this matter and we pulled the article shortly after it was published.
I apologize to our readers, to the open source community, our LinuxWorld
editors, and Ms. Pamela Jones for publishing the article.
Fuat Kircaali Publisher, SYS-CON Media"
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