This kind of stuff drives me nuts. CNN has a story today headlined Gates: Buy stamps to send e-mail. (Update: This story was taken from the AP wire service and was slightly edited by CNN. But still…)
In the first paragraph, the story reads: “…Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates, among others, is now suggesting that we start buying ‘stamps’ for e-mail. … At perhaps a penny or less per item, e-mail postage wouldn’t significantly dent the pocketbooks of people who send only a few messages a day. Not so for spammers who mail millions at a time.”
Of course, if you keep reading you realize that those statements have no basis in fact. Later, the report says, accurately, “…Gates gave the idea a lift in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. … Instead of paying a penny, the sender would ‘buy’ postage by devoting maybe 10 seconds of computing time to solving a math puzzle. The exercise would merely serve as proof of the sender’s good faith.”
No money. No penny per message. But it’s much sexier to put out the distorted message that greedy Bill G. wants more of your money.
Back to J-school, CNN.
Ed Bott 