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Robert Cringley on Slashdot Editing Jane's 130

Posted by Nathan from the comment-is-free dept.
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.
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Robert Cringley on Slashdot Editing Jane's More

Robert Cringley on Slashdot Editing Jane's

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  • So, Jane's figures out who to listen to, who actually know's their anal orifice from a hole in the ground, and is immediately ejected from the journalists club, for violating the unwritten code of conduct: NEVER write the truth - write what you want people to hear
  • Flawed? Jane's doesn't print "news" they print information. And what better way then to ask a large group of knowledgible people, such as the /. readers?

    Collaboration is at the heart of the DARPAnet... oops, I mean Internet.
  • Well, perhaps it would have been a better idea to ask Fred Cohen's InfoSec list about 'cyberterrorism', as some of the members might have a better idea of real world scenarios, but I don't think it's such a flawed idea. Sure, it might be a bit biased to open source solutions, but it's a start. On the other hand, at least someone out there knows not to believe in that key cracker that the Sunday Times reported on. As an aside, if an AC is quoted in the Jane's piece, who get the lineage rate?

  • the problem (Score:4)

    by Suydam ( 881 ) on Friday October 08, 1999 @03:54AM (#1629931) Homepage
    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.

  • Knowledgible people. Heh.
  • The only way to write the news is to write the news. You have to do it the best that you can then take the heat, because the censorship of the nerderati is still censorship. That's why newspapers make corrections.

    How is censorship from the newspaper any better? It seems to me that Jane's handed the article right over to what it considered 'the experts' instead of asking comments and reporting them incorrectly.
  • I don't quite see why the approach of Janes is flawed in any way. After all, almost everybody has at some time or another bemoaned the fact that media doesn't always check the facts of their stories.

    So, rather than flawed, I would call the approach visionary. One can always hope that it will be the normal thing to do for journalists in unfamiliar territory.

  • Not very specific (Score:4)

    by DreamerFi ( 78710 ) <johnNO@SPAMsinteur.com> on Friday October 08, 1999 @03:57AM (#1629935) Homepage
    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
  • This guy at least has the decency to write what he knows... Reporting.
    The story, when you get right down to it, is about reporting, and sensationalism.
    It even appears that he reads /. and determined the RSA-512 thing was a hoax, and then the postings about Jane's.
    So: He finds out that a rival posted bogus information, finds another way to get truth in writing (publications, at any rate), and lambasts them as well.
    It really seems that he is simply admiting his own sensationalism by writing the article, just one hack writing about how all the other hacks suck...
  • NEVER write the truth -
    write what you want people to hear

    Shouldn't that be "what people want to hear".

  • I thought the unwritten code of conduct was "never admit you don't know the subject you're writing on". Oh, wait. That's the Berst Rule of Journalism. Nevermind. As you were.
    Seriously though. I thought it was great that Jane's admitted that they weren't the experts here. My hat's off to Jane's.
  • I'm something of an amature historian, with a particular interest in WWII. As such, I'm already very familiar with Jane's well-earned spotless reputation. They publish a vast array of highly detailed, accurate books on naval ships, aircraft, and other military equipment. The armed forces of the US and others have long looked to them as an authority on everyone's hardware. Historians even used their sources even more often. I find it no surprise that Jane's made the right decision to go with the input from here, rather than that strange article they posted. It fits their pattern.

    Jane's has this incredible knack for doing things right, and keeping their facts straight. Too bad Mr. Cringley doesn't understand this.

  • did he actually read any of the discussion/article (Score:3)

    by revnight ( 8980 ) on Friday October 08, 1999 @04:01AM (#1629940)
    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
  • i think he had it right the first time.

  • A Type of Peer Review (Score:3)

    by _J_ ( 30559 ) <jasonlives@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Friday October 08, 1999 @04:04AM (#1629942) Journal
    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:)
  • It has been the great hypocrisy of American Journalism for the last 100 years to think that it operates objectively. If this were true, we would not have had Pulitzer, Hurst, Winchell, et al. giving us the news as they see it. All Cringely did was remind us of our own shortcomings. So what if he thinks that the Jane's incident was flawed. At least that journal had the temerity to do some research.

  • Slashdoy Bylines (Score:5)

    by TBone ( 5692 ) on Friday October 08, 1999 @04:05AM (#1629944) Homepage

    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

  • This guy basically rails against whatever he can find, and doesn't seem to do much research. For example, he points out the .cc domain thing, and wonders if maybe the next to do this will be the Christmas Islands. Well, if he'd bothered to do the research, he'd know that .cx is the Christmas Islands, and anyone can buy a domain there....

    On the Jane's thing, he didn't even know how it turned out, he was just talking about the initial request. I find it amusing that he thinks asking Slashdot for information comprises "censorship". What would he think a technical editor is ;-)

    Overall, pretty much content-free.

  • Journalism v.s. hot air (Score:4)

    by substrate ( 2628 ) on Friday October 08, 1999 @04:09AM (#1629947)
    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.
  • Yeah, it really sounded like he was advocating "write what you think is true, apologize later." Getting facts would count as a form of censorship according to what he said there.

    Course, I think it was a through-out comment and he wasn't wording carefully - or, he was just following he own advice?
  • Well in an email chat with one of the slashdot staff I was informed that it was going to be given to the "FSF". Though I tried to convience them to put up a poll so that we could decide the favorite charity of our choice. The poll idea may or may not happen, but its definitly going to some charity.
  • Gee, literacy does suffer on the net!

    :-|
  • Objectivity is not false. Pure objectivity is false. Objectivity comes in gradations, like most things. Objectivity in journalism is doing your best to be impartial and tell what is verifiable fact. Of course biases come into play. You have to choose what facts are important, and in what order they should be introduced, and what part of the story to focus on, and even what stories to do in the first place and where to put them.

    But there is such a thing as objectivity in journalism, and it is a virtue, one that few people know anything about anymore. More's the pity.
  • This phrase was the most telling to me. Why is he calling asking some people for their opinions "censorship"? Jane's was under no pressure to do anything, and it is to their credit that they listened to commentators who were far more informed than their original article. As a group, this might not have been the very best reviewers, but it was certainly far better than what they had at the start. Yet Cringely seems to find this practice very threatening. I must say, it's another proof to me that the standard journalist simply quotes others of the punditocracry, and finds any real fact-checkng an extremely scary thing.

    - Seth Finkelstein

  • >This is an interesting idea but ultimately flawed, I think. The only way to write the news is to write the news.

    And Janes isn't NEWS.
    Janes is (supposed to be) in-depth analysis. Janes (obvoiusly) has no internal/on the payroll talent that was able to create a viable 'cyberterrorism' article, and they knew it...at least knew it enough to take what their 'expert' had written and had it reviewed here.

    Janes *ALSO* had a small enough ego to determine that a 'peer' review was worthwhile. Kudos for them.

    I personally am e-mailing Cringly and asking how what Janes did is ANY different than a beat reporter interviewing a group of people, then creating an article based on the interview.

    Because all Janes did was to ask *US* to be interviewed, and we submitted. Janes ask some questions, and many people answered those questions. It only LOOKS different because the proccess was done out in the open, for all to see, rather than behind closed doors.

  • What I found to be most interesting about his assesment of Jane's decision was his automatic assumption of censorship.

    The only way to write the news is to write the news. You have to do it the best that you can then take the heat, because the censorship of the nerderati is still censorship. That's why newspapers make corrections.

    So now its most important to write what you think might be "facts" because, god help us, these "facts" might be censored by experts in the field. Sounds like a great rationalization to keep writing the sensationalist and bogus articles that now proliferate the media.

  • Correct me if I am wrong, but if you are a reporter wouldn't you want to talk to people who know what they are talking about if you intend to write an article? I take it Mr. Cringely would think someone working in marketing would be a better person to ask about computer security than the people who are actually in charge of security. Or how about asking Walt the school janitor how to teach a class on physics?

    To quote Ambrose Bierce: "Reporter, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words"



  • What Cringely didn't get... (Score:3)

    by jht ( 5006 ) on Friday October 08, 1999 @04:23AM (#1629957) Homepage Journal
    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? (Score:3)

    by Stormgren ( 17223 ) on Friday October 08, 1999 @04:23AM (#1629958)

    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..."?

  • and I suggest /. invites him to do so here

    I feel we should too, or, compile a list of questions and qualms and send them his way, so that he may write another puplit on why this pulpit was so vague, making unproveable assertions,

    "Forget the Mafia, this sort of device would be in active use right now in Russia and that country would suddenly not be so poor. Things would be a lot more screwed-up in the world than they actually are. "

    "This is an interesting idea but ultimately flawed, I think. The only way to write the news is to write the news. You have to do it the best that you can then take the heat, because the censorship of the nerderati is still censorship. That's why newspapers make corrections. "
    and wandering so tangently.
    " At $100 per coke.cc, intel.cc, and cringely.cc, there's millions to be made, though I suppose there will still be the risk of losing it all in 12 microseconds, which is quicker even than at the track. "

    Although I do realize the importance of such an issue, if this is true. If it is, I find it strange that we're learning of it only now (well, I am, though I'm sure some of you already have), and I wonder why it hasn't been posted on /.
    However, as we all know, each is entitled to his/her own opinion, and I'll be more eager to hear his, though, when he is more eager to elaborate, provide support, and arrange his argument in a more logical, concise, and integrated manner.
  • Both are true. In a lot of instances, media writes what people want. And in some instances, the media writes what they want people to hear. The first is 'commercialism' and the second is abuse of power.


    -
  • Ok:

    eser, tesha, shmone, sheva, shesh, hamesh, arba, shalosh, shtaiem, achat..

    I love cringelys writing (and various versions of Nurds)

    But one thing I've noticed over the years is that Cringely was never good at analysing trends that hapen in real time, his strength is story telling and analysing things after they happen. Not that there is enything bad in that.

    What annoyied me was percisly what you noticed.. he dissed Jane's useage of /. and gave no real reason - and that's lame in my book.
    --------------------------------
  • any group of humans seems to be rather stupid. individually, people can seem brilliant, but lump them in a group, and tada, groupmind mentality takes over and they all act stupid.

  • How is what Janes asked the Slashdot readership to do censorship ? Surely censorship is when an powerful organisation stops something from being published, not a publisher asking for "expert" advise on whether the technical content of an article is correct to decide whether it is of value.
  • This is the core problem of looking through other peoples research anywhere, whether it is on /., a public library, or anywhere else.

    It is naturally impossible to do perfectly, but it has to be done... we have to be able to find information on a subject without having to learn the whole thing from the bottom. (flameproof) Kindof like me learning Unix.(/flameproof)

    -
  • Actually, not specific at all.

    It's pretty indicative of what PBS in general, and Cringely in particular, os prone to do: Over-simplyfy an issues as a form of self-aggrandizement.

    I'm sure the folks at Jane's, many of whom have spent their entire lives looking at 'defence' technology (including cryptography and related sciences) are qualified to determine which of us Slashdot readers have a clue and which do not.

    In fact, one might go so far as to say that Jane's staff are more qualified pass judgement than a low-rent, over-liberal journalist who doesn't know the difference between "censorship" and "open professional review."
  • I think the internet should have it's own form of information hunting, farming and gathering:

    Journalists just have to accept that one person writing information is always going to be less informative that a thousand people putting together their collective knowledge on that piece.

    Paper journalism has evolved from the idea of just giving information, to becoming political, or as a tool of the individual journalist. But if people with access to the internet want something closer to straight facts, they'll go for faqs, ask slashdots, usenet discussions and the like. Of course they are still biased, but they do offer a wider opinion space than individually made work.

    I've recently volunteered to put together something on the web about an important educator. It took me about half an hour to work out that if I write it all myself, it'll be like a high school essay: ultimately biased, incorrect, and limited to what I can do and what time I have to do it.

    So I went open source, and said. Ok, it's a faq. Start asking questions, start answering them. The work will build on it's own (with some help from me) and will be much more complete than what I'd have come up with after studying for ages.

    That's the functionality the internet has. It's pointless not to use it. Paper Journalism should stay on paper.

    Ale

  • I think Cringely missed the whole point. Jane's editor recognized that there are many "experts" on cyberterrorism with their own agenda (political or financial). He went to a less biased, more accurate source of info. Perhaps if Jane's quoted Louis Freeh (or Jane Reno)on the the dangers of cyberterrorism, that would constitute an unbiased, reliable and knowledgable source. Cringely, how do you research stories? I wonder now.
  • Hey, didn't you know that this was the techno version of the Drudge Report? (the Drudge Window System running the Techno-Geek Window Manager??)

    It will get 'credentials' for a few weeks from the mainstream, then will be considered crackpot by almost everybody.

    As well it should.
  • Its called Peer review. The scientific press has
    been doing this for quite some time.

  • A rebuttal (Score:5)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@yahoGINSBERGo.com minus poet> on Friday October 08, 1999 @04:44AM (#1629973) Homepage Journal
    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.
  • Andrew Leonard in Salon [salon.com] has a piece ('Open Source Journalism') [salonmagazine.com] too. He is more positive to the /. comment process and says "sites like Slashdot are pioneering new territory as they facilitate access to that knowledge, to the great and lasting benefit of us all".

    Lars
    Lars

    --
  • It's what happens when "talk over a beer in the corner tavern" translates directly into written text without going through an editor.
  • What's the difference between an anal orifice and a Back Orifice? :)
  • 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.

    WHO TOLD YOU???

    I mean...yes, you're right;)

    *goes off to reset targeting parameters...*

  • "Maybe this was in the minds of the folks at Jane's, the British publisher of defense information, who this week threw their cyber terrorism research at the nerds who read Slashdot, hoping for some inexpensive proofreading to keep Jane's from making their own big mistakes. This is an interesting idea but ultimately flawed, I think. The only way to write the news is to write the news. You have to do it the best that you can then take the heat, because the censorship of the nerderati is still censorship. That's why newspapers make corrections."

    --Robert X. Cringely--

    GRRR.... If you actually read this whole article you will see that this paragraph about Jane's doesn't even fit. The article refers to news agencies and the way the print or release the news and then puts in this part about Jane's. Well he's flawd by including Jane's in this article because it doesn't publish news, it publishes an informational reference guide. There is a difference in news articles and information reference guides. Jane's did exactly what anyone reading its articles would have wanted them to do. They got factual information and not distorted media BS.

    "Nerderati" - for understanding of my feeling on this new addition to my vocabulary please see the above GRRR

  • Amen brother.

    I too have noticed this explosion of expert punditry. It's the sign of the times, I guess. Whenever something happens in traditional media, they haul out these half-ass lawyers, retired generals, publisher barons, etc. to tell us what is really happening. Half of the time these jokers don't have a clue.

    The same thing happens on Slashdot. You have a lot of kids brushing up their essay skills by submitting some "thoughtful" prose. I am amazed by the amount of drivel that makes it into this forum. It's the same thing for the newsgroups too, so I guess it's par for the course.

    The skill that will be paramount in our lives is discerning what information is plausibly accurate. Those proficient and who possess a knack for wading through the reems of fluff will be in demand. The rest will suffer from the Infoclypse or Cyberglut, whatever John Katz (Prime Poser #1) has called it this week.
  • Or does his article contradict itself? He chastises the London Sunday Times for not checking their facts, then attacks Jane's for their attempt at getting the story right.

    I think Jane's realized something that more media outlets are going to understand as technology stories become evan more popular. The audience for these stories tend to be knowledgable on the subject and can be very critical of flawed articles. I can't tell you how many articles I've read that explain the Y2K bug and obviously didn't know what they were talking about. So Jane's gave their audience the chance to correct the story before it went to print, which I think was a great idea. It's refreshing to see the media admit it doesn't know everything.

    BTW, has anybody driven the new 2000 Mitsubishi Nerderati? That's a sweet ride... :-)

    human://billy.j.mabray/
  • I thought he was being very specific - he's saying that you can't write news, news has to happen.

    Of course, that completely misses the point of the 'Janes' article which, AFAIUI, is not news, but is an explanation of the threat of cyberterrorism and the possible ramifications. I'm looking forward to reading the finished text.

    Nick.
  • Jane's approach to this story is fundamentally flawed because they didn't clear it with Cringley first.
  • Indeed, not much content. It would barely rate a story on Slashdot, were it not already a Slashdot-related issue.

    I agree with his conclusion, but not his argument (such as it was). Slashdot is currently worth listening to because it's populated by people who grok the tech and it's still novel enough to appeal to their interests and their willingness to spend time on it. When (and it will happen) Slashdot is dumbed-down by the barbarian WebTeeVee hordes, the nerderati will no longer care enough to re-write Jane's pieces for them, or at least to do it well.

    #include death_of_usenet_predicted.h

  • Hmmmm ... but "peer review" is a more structured process, which is actually carried out by "peers" -- carefully selected other experts. This is more akin to the governmental process of producing "White Papers" and setting them out for comment by the general public.

    The Open Source model of peer review works because hacking isn't like science -- rather than a small number of specialists in each field, there's a lot of gifted generalists. So there aren't any "peers", but there is a well-informed "public". Or something.

    My guess is that Cringely has just run out of ideas and wants to do a "those ill-mannered geeks" story, so he's posted some blatant flamebait and is now sitting waiting for contributions to "Slashdot Readers are so rude" for the next column. Hey ho hum.

    jsm
  • PBS, as demonstrated by their uncovered [directmag.com] an ill concealed sharing of donor lists with the Democratic party, is hardly in a position to hurl stones at the "nerdrati" especially as we do more than "read Slashdot" we write it.

    You really have to ask yourself, do you want to go and start inviting elitist journalist types who look down on us? I think the conceit of the media will be the only thing that keeps slashdot from turning into zdnet.

  • I may (or not) have read a Cringley article or two linked out of /. in the past, but I doubt I will in the future, or at the very least won't take him seriously at all. I mean, the guy doesn't even know what side of the fence he's trying to be on. Check this out, from the first bit of his rant dealing with good news / bad news:

    "The first [principle] says that people aren't really interested in good news, that bad news grabs our attention in a way good news never could. Frankly, I don't buy this."

    Then later (re: Associated Press)

    "It was easier to sell stories about bad news than about good news. The more people who died or who were at risk of dying, the better. Bad news sells, which is why we cover so much bad news. It is as simple as that."

    Simple? Simple-minded perhaps. Which is it Bob: Bad news sells - or bad news doesn't sell? You can't have it both ways.

    My advice to ./ers: Don't let this guy's rant on tech tie you up in knots, when he obviously doesn't know jack-shit about journalism, a subject he _should_ know something about.

  • I think some of you are taking this a little bit too seriously. The place where he mentions Slashdot and Jane's is just one little paragraph in a bigger article.

    I understand if you don't like Cringely's writing style, but I don't think that this article was that bad. I disagree with Cringely about what Jane's and Slashdot did being censorship, but the reaction around here seems a little out of line. So his views a news coverage are a little conservative. Deal with it.

    We should learn to take criticism (and even ignorance) a little more calmly. I mean, I can't imagine what the reaction have been if Cringely had said something like, "I don't really see the point of Beowulfs." Or even, "I think Gnome is worse than KDE."

  • From the Salon article:

    >They are helping journalists get the story right, which is a far cry from exerting censorship.

    I have no ide a what Cringly is opposed to. Most of the comments on the Jane article;
    1. Were of good quality over-all. (way better than the original article.)
    2. Could have been easily rejected/ignored by the editors of Jane. They are they ones who make the decision what to publish, not slashdotters.
  • Another key is to make sure you know where the author's coming from, and filter appropriately.
  • Adding to this, here's an excerpt from Thomas Sowell's new book Barbarians Inside the Gates:

    "Appearently it is wrong to know things that would upset the liberals' [media's] picture of the world--whether the particular issue involves abortion, Anita Hill, homosexuals or the homesless...Perhaps a classic example of preventing the public from knowing things considered wrong to know was the media treatment of David Brock's book, The Real Anita Hill, when it was published a few years ago. The question is not whether one agrees or disagrees with what the book says. The question is whether the public should be allowed to know what the book says..."

    Janes essentially crossed this line by allowing a public forum to take on some of the Media's burden of Omniscience. This event, while seemingly unremarkable [slashdot collaborative writing with Jane's], does set somewhat of a disturbing president from the perspetive of the media elite. It quantifies the fact that the public often know more about news than they do. Add to this the Internet, which scares the media to death. This is mostly do to the rapid, and progressive decline in the sale of magizines and newspapers, as an increasingly disgusted public turns to alternative means of information dissemination, free of the politically correct filters or "official" media organizations such as PBS.

  • Well, if the janitor's name was Good Will Hunting... :)
  • Adding to this, here's an excerpt from Thomas Sowell's new book Barbarians Inside the Gates:

    "Apparently it is wrong to know things that would upset the liberals' [media's] picture of the world--whether the particular issue involves abortion, Anita Hill, homosexuals or the homeless...Perhaps a classic example of preventing the public from knowing things considered wrong to know was the media treatment of David Brock's book, The Real Anita Hill, when it was published a few years ago. The question is not whether one agrees or disagrees with what the book says. The question is whether the public should be allowed to know what the book says..."

    Janes essentially crossed this line by allowing a public forum to take on some of the Media's burden of Omniscience. This event, while seemingly unremarkable [slashdot collaborative writing with Jane's], does set somewhat of a disturbing president from the perspective of the media elite. It quantifies the fact that the public often know more about news than they do. Add to this the Internet, which scares the media to death. This is mostly do to the rapid, and progressive decline in the sale of magazines and newspapers, as an increasingly disgusted public turns to alternative means of information dissemination, free of the politically correct filters or "official" media organizations such as PBS.

  • You mean to say all his stories ARE researched? Wow.. fooled me.
  • The same thing happens on Slashdot. You have a lot of kids brushing up their essay skills by submitting some "thoughtful" prose. I am amazed by the amount of drivel that makes it into this forum. It's the same thing for the newsgroups too, so I guess it's par for the course.


    Then please, enlighten us with your masterful and infinite knowledge of all subjects which endows you with the ability to judge the value of EVERY POST EVER WRITTEN BY ANYONE ON ANY SUBJECT ON SLASHDOT. If you find that something is drivel then SAY SO, contradict the incorrect posts, show us the facts, the information, that is why Slashdot exists. If you are allowing the proliferation of misinformation through inaction then you are as bad as those who disseminate the misinformation.

    As someone's .sig has repeatedly informed us, 'Shut up or get contructive' ,esr.

    Kintanon
  • Ever consider that this author is just trying to take advantage of the /. effect and generate traffic to his article to boost his meager name on the internet?

    He takes a decidedly "establishment" point of view (being that of the traditional press) then blasts anti-establishment activity (Jane's soliciting /. for feedback) with no good reason other than "that's the way to write news". Then he has the audacity to call it censorship.

    Then he "conveniently" starts talking about why no one is paying attention to the whole ".cc" issue with a pronounced pro-business angle. The general issue of companies going after individuals that own desireable domain names has long been a rallying point for /. readers.

    How many of you felt angry as you were reading his article? I started to, then I realized what he was trying to do. If he attacks /. enough times and generates enough controversy, he's bound to find his name appearing on some of the bigger news sites now that the world is starting to be watch us.
  • Well, actually I had always thought that Cringely was basically a humorist, who wrote about news. The new was, at best, secondary. Seems like this time not too many got the joke.

  • Personally, I found the article to be pointless. He rambles on about someone writing an article that wasn't true and has no basis. Then, he says the only way to make news is to write articles that have no basis and sort out the facts later. After all, that's why papers make corrections.

    What an idiot.

  • You'll pay us to know what you REALLY think!

    MORE SLACK AND MORE SEX, NOW!
  • "liberals"? I would have said "Any group in a position of power" (folk are folk).
    Consider, for example, what happened when Dr. Wilhelm Reich ran afoul of the American Medical Association (not exactly a liberal group, but also not overwhelmingly conservative, just powerful). (He died in prison, for no very clear reason. Some of his books are still banned, at least in the U.S.)
  • Both are true. In a lot of instances, media writes what people want. And in some instances, the media writes what they want people to hear.

    The other option is to write what they think people want...
  • Yeah! When is Slashdot gooing two encorpsorate a splelling tsheker ento thee post editor.

    (Sorry, got tired of trying to think up creative spellings to make the point. Although typo's are the main problem.)
  • On the one hand:

    1. The signal-to-noise in Slashdot makes it only so much better than Usenet for this purpose.

    2. Journalists have a duty to learn their topic well enough not to need Slashdot before writing about it. Asking Slashdot for proofreading is tantamount to admitting profound ignorance of a topic.

    3. Slashdot writers have clue, but that does not make them unbiased.

    On the other hand:

    1. Journalists in general are profoundly clueless about things like net security.

    2. So, one might as well admit it.

    3. Jane's has done much better by trolling Slashdot for revisions than many publications that have printed clueless pap and then, contrary to Cringely's prescription not bothered to print corrections. For examples, visit Adam Penenberg's column archive. [forbes.com] In particular, this one [forbes.com], in which CNNfn and ZDTV, printed false details from one of his stories and refused to correct them.

  • That's perhaps a trifle extreme as an example, but you could try the Weekly World News, the Star, or the National Enquirer.

    Of course, I don't think that they normally bother with a corrections page.
  • Cringley really blew this one. Jane's is not news, it is reference material. Unlike news, which speed of dissemination is paramount Jane's is supposed to be more scholarly. If you don't do some research you are in big trouble.
  • You have to do it the best that you can then take the heat, because the censorship of the nerderati is still censorship.

    Why would you want to talk to people before writing a news article? What were they thinkink? You should just release the tripe and then get all the publicity of being an idiot (dvorak), or pissing people off. Well, that might have worked in the 18-20th century, but dammit, how hard is it to do research now?

    Asking expert opinion before writing an article is usually a pretty damn good idea. Censorship in this sense must mean "not publishing erroneous information", that's not censorship, that's editing. Yellow journalism has now become the norm, not the edge. Why has people's trust in the media dropped off so sharply? I'll give you four hints: Rupert Murdoch, Sumner Redstone, Ted Turner, and Lowry Mays.

    Poor article by Cringely. Media to the People!
  • It's probably a matter of interest. I feel that he is basically a humorist, and sarcasm is one of his choosen forms of expression. He's not basically a journalist, so facts are secondary.
  • I'm just wondering though, what the following clause meant, in context of the article...

    ...because the censorship of the nerderati is still censorship.

    Other than that, this guy might be "afraid" that ubiquitous "Expert sources" might be obsolete. If that is the case, then the answer is probably yes and no.

    Or he might be "afraid" that the concept of the Editor is obsolete. I think not. We just tossed in some knowledge and opinion, we don't have to sift through it. :)

    ______________________________
  • 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.

    Except then it would be the truth!

    It's part of the NSA/CIA/FBI/RSA/KGB/CHS/NBC/CBS/HBO/Showtime/Playb oy/ComedyCentral/Illuminati/Bozo-the-clo wn conspiracy! Their eventual hope is to be able to launch a creme pie at any person in the world within 0.05 seconds of that person uttering the words, "I sure could use a creme pie."

    Right now, even as I type, armies of trained nanobots are scurrying through your room, implanting hidden circuts to listen for the words of what they call "the creme pie death wish"... The launching platform actually is the Hubble telescope. It creates it's creme pies by using a solar oven (which you can't see because it's totally black, using alien technology to mix the paint) to gather heat from the sun to cook the pie crusts, which NASA has been delivering slowly, for testing purposes. The creme is made using a wonderful new superconducting technology which has been kept secret by the oil companies, because the creme gets 120 MPG when mixed with dryer lint.

    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not really after you.

    :-)
    ---
  • One of the things I like best about /. is that most bull***t gets ferreted out rather quickly. Just don't read a discussion for a couple days and let it settle and stratify (word?). Then set your threshold, LOGIN so I can know if you're an idiot or an expert(the default assumption for ACs is "idiot"), be critical of too good to be true stories (and Jesux), and quit bithcing and moaning.

    BTW: if you missed the poll, a third of the people who frequent this place are students, take that for what it's worth.
  • Check out the Jane-Slashdot interaction on salon. [salon.com] It says:
    Cringely made his comments before Jane's announced it was killing the original story. One can only imagine his dismay now. News flash! Raging nerds silence journalist!

    Cringely's reaction would now be quite different: after Jane not only subjected itself for "censorship" but also decided to use it!

    Also, somebody here mentioned this is like peer review. Well, is it? When was the last time one sent a paper to a journal and the editor decided to publish the referee report instead!!

    The Jane-Slashdot story is a unique first...
  • Janes only knew enough to suspect that they had a crappy article, but not enough to write a better one... I wonder why they have such faith in themselves in being able to judge the /. contributions as any better? Most people here arn't going to have in depth knowledge pertaining to cyberterrorism, but most of us are going to be pretty opinionated, and well capable of spouting of reams of semi-informed good sounding hi-tech bullshit. I think Cringely was dead-on: there's no substitute for real independent research.
  • ...that Cringely makes a huge gaffe throughout this piece. The RSA512 story ran in The Times, not the Sunday Times, which is a separate publication with its own staff. He wastes a healthy few hundred words criticising the wrong paper.

    I can see where he made this error: the URL that was run in Slashdot (and previously, in NTK) had Sunday Times in the address. Both papers share the same Website.The implication here is that Cringely, knowingly or not, has been picking his up his news stories from the "nerderati" themselves. It seems odd that Cringely would take advantage of Websites distributing tips like this, but decline to use the parallel error-checking mechanisms that sit alongside them.

    I understand what he means about being able to state your opinion without worrying about censure: but discovering the facts to wrap your opinion around is still a scalable art.




  • It has to be said that the most humourous part of Cringley's article was "the censorship of the nerderati is still censorship" - let me get this straight; if a teacher tells her student "You have spelt that wrong", it's censorship ? There is a line being censored, and being corrected. It seems that Cringley really doesn't like either. But saying he doesn't like being censored is a lot easier to take.
  • >7.Cringley seems to be very hostile to just about everything.

    Could the answer of Cringley's hostility be in his own article? - Sensationalism. What better way to attract all of those eyeballs than by being sensationalist.

    After all, being dull doesn't get you very much attention.
  • What it looked like to me was that the entire article was already written, and then he noticed this whole /. thing, so he figured he'd throw a paragraph in (it did, after all, get posted here only the day before his deadline). I'd bet that if challenged, he might actually condescend to elaborate on the "ultimately flawed" claim. ~luge
  • That is true, but the value of sites like this is that you don't have to be super-smart to seperate the wheat from the chaff. You merely have to be knowledgable. If you've got a good layman's knowledge of the subject, then it is fairly easy to tell who the real experts are and who the bullshit artists are.

    (Either that, or I've fallen for a lot more crap than I thought.)

    If you an idiot, well, you are not going to be able to discriminate real knowledge from crap, but that this is a problem at anywhere. There is a lot of bullshit in the news media as well. The difference is that here, the bullshit is mixed in with the truth, while in the regular media, you almost randomly get either bullshit, or truth, depending on the ability of the reporter. If the wheel comes up "crap", then you've got little chance of finding the truth from that source, regardless of your own brains. And if your brains aren't worth much, well, you aren't going to recognize crap in the regular media either.
  • 'nuff said.

    That way anyone who has any beefs with him can take them up directly.

    I'm sure it would turn out interesting if nothing else as he's certainly an interesting writer and person, even if you think he's something of a dolt.

    -=-=-=-=-

  • Basically, I look at it this way. The article was reviewed by a team of 'Experts', which suggested changes, etc, for the document.

    The slashdot community has more then one expert amungst us, and they tend to get moderated up more then down..
  • I disagree. That's why we have the moderation system. If you posts by score, you tend to get the smarter folks first. I'm not saying that this always happens, but moderation is 'Peer Review'..
  • However, Slashdot is not a peer review body. I've had scientific papers reviewed, and this is nothing like it...

    Where's Dan Farmer? Where's Wietse Venema? Or any other academically published security expert with serious real world expertise. What we have here is a gathering of enthusiasts which may (and I mean, may) just contain a handful of experts. That's not enough...

    Cringely is an experienced journalist who knows the value of good, consistent sources. Slashdot, for all its good points, is not consistent. And it most definitely isn't journalism...

    S.
  • I tried to give Cringely an even break here, but I just couldn't buy what he was saying here: too many contradictions. First, consider what he has to say about bad news being a better sell than good news:
    The first says that people aren't really interested in good news, that bad news grabs our attention in a way good news never could. Frankly, I don't buy this. The second principle says we blame it all on the Associated Press. THIS I believe. (from paragraph 1)
    The AP's other invention was sensation, and it came about for exactly the same reason. It was easier to sell stories about bad news than about good news. The more people who died or who were at risk of dying, the better. Bad news sells, which is why we cover so much bad news. (from paragraph 3)

    So which is it, Cringely? I'm making the assumption that which news sells is a fair indication of interest, but I don't really think that's much of a stretch. Cringely seems to be more interested in accusing the AP than in addressing the fundamental root of the problem (bad news sells), which he alternates between denying and admitting within the space of three paragraphs.

    Later, he criticizes the Sunday Times for printing an incorrect article on code-cracking:

    The greater concern has to be with the Sunday Times, itself. How could they print this rubbish, which made little scientific sense? Alas, the traditional media have neither caught on nor caught up to what is happening in technology. (from paragraph 9)

    ...and then, criticizes Jane's for soliciting comments on its cyber-terrorism article

    This is an interesting idea but ultimately flawed, I think. The only way to write the news is to write the news. You have to do it the best that you can then take the heat, because the censorship of the nerderati is still censorship. That's why newspapers make corrections. (from paragraph 10)

    If I'm a magazine editor, and I receive a story submission which contains obvious factual errors, am I censoring the author by spiking the story? That's an editor's job, for god's sake. I don't accept the argument that it's better to let a poorly written article run and then apologize for it than to can it outright.

    With that said, other /. readers have already pointed out that Cringely doesn't explain how asking for our opinion of the article is any different than other fact checking that the original author should have done. He merely asserts that we censored the article. This brings to mind the following question: if instead, it had been Cringely who previewed the original article (heavens forfend), and if he had panned it, and if Jane's had dropped the story: would Cringely be the one guilty of censorship?

    My theory: Cringely has attacked in this column the concepts of journalistic objectivity, editorial judgement, and fact verification by third parties. Is it possible that he's afraid that if every artcile went through a review process like the Jane's CT article, he'd have nothing to gripe about?

  • This is slightly off-topic and very picky, but the author mentions the "Office of Naval Reconnaissance" in his article. No such thing. Presumably he means the "Office of Naval RESEARCH."

    Perhaps he needs to follow his own advice and print a correction now?

    OT: There are a number of VERY brilliant people working for ONR. You'd be very suprised at how much public domain code has come out of their labs. But you'd be even more surprised to know about the code that will (at least for many years) not be made public. I interned there for a month last summer - a very humbling experience.
  • I don't intend this to be flamebait, but I wonder if the positive attention from Jane's is being treated as some sort of external validation for a lot of Slashdot readers.

    Cringley wrote,

    "Maybe this was in the mind of the folks at Jane's , the British publishers of defense information who through this week their cyber terrorism research at the ners who read Slashdot, hoping for some inexpensive proofreading to keep Jane's from making their own big mistakes."

    A condecending statement, to be sure, but it seems accurate to me. Let's face it, this was an easy way for Jane's to get some quick, free information. As to anyone getting paid for freely submitted opinions, I'll believe that when I see it. I have a great deal of respect for Jane's. I own several of their fine publications. Just thought someone should play devil's advocate here. This seems like yet another "us vs. them" argument.

    Maybe I'm too much of a cynic. Or maybe Cringley was just trolling for hits via the Slashdot effect. Hey, it is the easiest way today for any technology writer to insure a massive number of hits!

  • I'mnot sure how to take that last comment...


    I think that a large number of students are far more willing to look at an idea from a fresh prospective then the general population (not to say that there aren't non-students that will do the same also). While all of us may not have 20 years in the business, most of us have atleast a fair ammount of expearance, and of course, we are always are on the cutting edge.


    So, I personaly think that students add quite a bit to Slashdot.
  • Guess we ought to have Cringely as an interview subject before long, eh? All right. I'll ask him.

    - Robin

  • we are always are on the cutting edge. So, I personaly think that students add quite a bit to Slashdot.

    Students, as a whole, are also a lot more likely to spout off as experts, when there are merely knowledgable. Youthful exhuberance adds a lot to a lively discussion, but aged wisdom gives it a foundation to build from. Not trying to start a war here, just that I remember thinking as a student how stupid the world was, and now I see, in many areas, that I was the idiot. (this is only 3 years out of school mind you, and a lot of the world still seems stupid).
  • I personally think that Mr. Cringely has a good point here. For certain, using something like /. for free technical editing has limited possibilities - I mean, while it's generally possible to winnow out the people who know what they're talking about from those who don't, it isn't always. All it takes is a subject that not many people here know much about (say, Transmeta's operations), and a well developed gift of gab, and yes, even we, the "nerderati" can be fooled.


    Comments welcome!

    bp
  • Well, he actually does say why he thinks it's flawed. He called it censorship.

    Now that's just dumb. The original Jane's article wasn't news, it was analysis. And it wasn't very good analysis. So Jane's chucked it and is writing a better analysis, with input from Slashdot posters.

    This is not censorship. Cringley is completely wrong.

    The interesting question: Is Cringely just ignorant, or was he intentionally misleading? If so, why?

    Torrey Hoffman (Azog)

  • I find the constant relabelling of various mechanisms by which bad ideas are weeded out as 'censorship' to be kind of amusing, and sort of dangerous.

    I wonder if the various and diverse groups of people who do this sort of relabelling realize that they're weakening an important and appropriately alarming word in the hopes of lending its strength to their opinion?

  • The problem is, that as a group, 'Slashdot readers' aren't really all that smart.


    The topics and discusions covered tend to draw techical/scientific people here. When I ask my friends if they ever read /. the ones that say yes tend to be those that I consider the smarter ones.


    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.


    I have things setup here so that I see the highest rated comments first.
    I think that the moderation system does a pretty good job of bringing the best comments to the surface. You find fewer "crack pots" spouting off here because they get slammed or moderated down if they don't present credible arguments. There is also less "silly science" here because no matter what people write about, someone here is enough of an expert to know if they have the facts straight. I often find that the comments are as or even more interesting then the articles they are about.

  • I'm afraid Cringely does say why: he attributes a motive to _Jane's_ ("hoping for some inexpensive proofreading to keep Jane's from making their own big mistakes") and concludes "only way to write the news is to write the news"--as if to suggest that voluntary collaborative authoring or editing isn't a normal procedure in many situations. I'm sure he has many more specific things to say, but the idea that submitting an open call for comment is a form of "censorship" (his term) isn't something I'm very curious to hear him expand on. It's a shame that he uses censorship in this case as a catch-all category for thinking about the dynamics of communication. What _Jane's_ did was important because it crossed a big line: it was an informal peer review--but with a twist in how they defined "peer." Normally, it involves institutional credentials, which definitely serves to suppress contributions; but Slashdot doesn't impose credentials as a barrier to entry. The idea that motivated people might offer valuable input regardless of their officially acknowledged stature in a field could be an excellent precedent.

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