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List: kde-promo
Subject: Re: [kde-promo] Suggestion: Establishing a press fact-check team
From: Jos Poortvliet <jos () opensuse ! org>
Date: 2014-02-19 16:40:04
Message-ID: CAABAGrVCEYgtnG9LDzxaV3-1W8HoOD=RZcaR3WgiYWs5rzUsdQ () mail ! gmail ! com
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We reached out to press before. I agree we can and should assign a few
'press co tacts' and reach out a bit more...
On Feb 19, 2014 4:28 PM, "Thomas Pfeiffer" <colomar@autistici.org> wrote:
> Dear KDE promo team,
> as some of you may know, recently we had at least two cases [1,2] of a
> certain
> news site (Phoronix) reporting about discussions on KDE mailing lists which
> were not made public by us yet, and - far worse - getting some important
> facts
> wrong.
> Some KDE developers consider such news sites "The FOSS Yellow Press",
> because
> they tend to pick up any news they can get and present them in a way aimed
> at
> maximizing clicks, not producing quality journalism.
> We've tried to contact Phoronix' main author on several occasions but got
> no
> reply, so we assume he simply does not want to talk to us.
> That by itself isn't a huge problem, since Phoronix is a blog and not a
> press
> website, so people should take what they write with a grain of salt
> anyways.
> The problem is, however, that other, generally more reputable, press sites
> tend to pick up news posted there and link to them without properly fact-
> checking them first. This, in turn, may lead their readers to think that
> Phoronix posts the truth. This problem certainly isn't limited to one blog,
> Phoronix is just the most prominent example.
> On a Google+ comment thread [3], we discussed how to deal with this
> situation.
> Among the suggestions was to move discussions we don't want media to
> report on
> prematurely to private mailing lists or to try to convince the press to
> ignore
> Phoronix (and other "FOSS Yellow Press" outlets). I think the first
> suggestion
> would be bad for a FOSS project, and the second simply isn't feasible.
>
> What I think would be a more constructive way to deal with the situation
> is to
> task a few people which have good knowledge of - and ideally connections
> with
> - the FOSS press landscape with looking for articles which get facts wrong
> or
> grossly misrepresent something - or link to such articles without proper
> accompanying comments - and offer to clarify the facts.
> Though this would not keep the "Yellow Press" from spreading nonsense to
> get
> traffic, it would at least keep those sites which care about quality
> journalism
> from repeating that nonsense blindly.
>
> This is not an easy task, as we need to make sure we don't come across as
> trying to censor the press, but letting factual errors spread across the
> FOSS
> media landscape is just as dangerous.
>
> Do you think this makes sense? And if so: Are there members of the team
> willing and able to take on that task?
>
> Please keep me in CC on your replies, since I'm not subscribed to the promo
> list.
>
> Thank you,
> Thomas
>
> [1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU4NjU
> [2] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTYwNjM
> [3] https://plus.google.com/+MartinGr%C3%A4%C3%9Flin/posts/T23tK6r4qLb
>
> _______________________________________________
> This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.
>
> Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set
> digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.
>
[Attachment #5 (text/html)]
<p dir="ltr">We reached out to press before. I agree we can and should assign a few \
'press co tacts' and reach out a bit more...</p> <div class="gmail_quote">On \
Feb 19, 2014 4:28 PM, "Thomas Pfeiffer" <<a \
href="mailto:colomar@autistici.org">colomar@autistici.org</a>> wrote:<br \
type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 \
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Dear KDE promo team,<br>
as some of you may know, recently we had at least two cases [1,2] of a certain<br>
news site (Phoronix) reporting about discussions on KDE mailing lists which<br>
were not made public by us yet, and - far worse - getting some important facts<br>
wrong.<br>
Some KDE developers consider such news sites "The FOSS Yellow Press", \
because<br> they tend to pick up any news they can get and present them in a way \
aimed at<br> maximizing clicks, not producing quality journalism.<br>
We've tried to contact Phoronix' main author on several occasions but got \
no<br> reply, so we assume he simply does not want to talk to us.<br>
That by itself isn't a huge problem, since Phoronix is a blog and not a press<br>
website, so people should take what they write with a grain of salt anyways.<br>
The problem is, however, that other, generally more reputable, press sites<br>
tend to pick up news posted there and link to them without properly fact-<br>
checking them first. This, in turn, may lead their readers to think that<br>
Phoronix posts the truth. This problem certainly isn't limited to one blog,<br>
Phoronix is just the most prominent example.<br>
On a Google+ comment thread [3], we discussed how to deal with this situation.<br>
Among the suggestions was to move discussions we don't want media to report \
on<br> prematurely to private mailing lists or to try to convince the press to \
ignore<br> Phoronix (and other "FOSS Yellow Press" outlets). I think the \
first suggestion<br> would be bad for a FOSS project, and the second simply isn't \
feasible.<br> <br>
What I think would be a more constructive way to deal with the situation is to<br>
task a few people which have good knowledge of - and ideally connections with<br>
- the FOSS press landscape with looking for articles which get facts wrong or<br>
grossly misrepresent something - or link to such articles without proper<br>
accompanying comments - and offer to clarify the facts.<br>
Though this would not keep the "Yellow Press" from spreading nonsense to \
get<br> traffic, it would at least keep those sites which care about quality \
journalism<br> from repeating that nonsense blindly.<br>
<br>
This is not an easy task, as we need to make sure we don't come across as<br>
trying to censor the press, but letting factual errors spread across the FOSS<br>
media landscape is just as dangerous.<br>
<br>
Do you think this makes sense? And if so: Are there members of the team<br>
willing and able to take on that task?<br>
<br>
Please keep me in CC on your replies, since I'm not subscribed to the promo<br>
list.<br>
<br>
Thank you,<br>
Thomas<br>
<br>
[1] <a href="http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU4NjU" \
target="_blank">http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU4NjU</a><br>
[2] <a href="http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTYwNjM" \
target="_blank">http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTYwNjM</a><br>
[3] <a href="https://plus.google.com/+MartinGr%C3%A4%C3%9Flin/posts/T23tK6r4qLb" \
target="_blank">https://plus.google.com/+MartinGr%C3%A4%C3%9Flin/posts/T23tK6r4qLb</a><br>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.<br>
<br>
Visit <a href="https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo" \
target="_blank">https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo</a> to unsubscribe, \
set digest on or temporarily stop your subscription.<br> </blockquote></div>
_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.
Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on \
or temporarily stop your subscription.
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