Thomas Hawk reminds us what happens when journalists lose track of their ethical responsibilities. He suggests a letter-writing campaign to Joe Fay, editor of The Register, reminding him that his publication printed a fabricated e-mail message and has never apologized for or retracted that story, despite repeated notices of the underlying facts.
Thomas could go a step further with this campaign. I would suggest writing some letters to The Register’s sponsors, pointing out that they’ve chosen to align themselves with a publication that doesn’t respect the truth.
Expansys.com (along with its USA subsidiary, Expansys-usa.com) is a major sponsor of The Register. I certainly won’t buy anything from them, and I won’t recommend them to anyone else as long as they’re supporting this outfit.
I just saw an ad for Crucial.com on The Register’s site, served via Mediaplex.com. I regularly recommend Crucial.com. I think they might want to know that they’re unwittingly affiliated with an unethical organization.
If you want to join Thomas’s letter-writing campaign, be sure to cc those folks.
Ed Bott 
Oooh, dear, how bad ideas can take flight.
Let’s get to the details of Thomas Hawk’s “complaint”.
!) In January 2004 Andrew Orlowski writes article about Media Center which turns out to be wrong. No animals are harmed in the writing of the story.
2) 18 months and many stories later, the same writer writes an article about a fault with the Internet Explorer 7.0, which does indeed “nuke” earlier versions of the Google and Yahoo toolbars. (It leaves the up-to-date ones alone.) What seems to be a Robert Scoble email is quoted.
Some people get upset on Robert Scoble’s behalf, but Scoble himself does not get in touch with The Register to demand any change or rebut what is there. Note that The Register does and has published changes and retractions.
Here’s another important point: Thomas Hawk has no – as the lawyers put it – ‘locus standi’. That is, he has no place to stand; he’s not directly involved in the case. So Joe Fay can (in British legal terms, if anything was at stake, probably should) not reply to any demands or queries from Thomas Hawk on the topic. The fact that he did, with a response which covers what’s outstanding from both The Register’s point of view and, apparently, Robert Scoble’s (since the latter has had plenty of time to respond if he thought it was merited) suggests that the matter is closed.
Any letter-writing campaign, therefore, is sure to be what I’d call a TOFWOT – a total.. waste of time. There’s no reason why you (Ms or Mr Passing Punter) should have any impact on Joe Fay’s point of view about this story, because those involved have already done all they’re going to do, in the absence of any more actual events.
Now, can we move on to something more useful?
Charles,
You write:
Correction: You have a statement from Joe Fay saying that Scoble didn’t contact him. Given that The Reg has a history of printing things that are less than true, why should I believe him?
At any rate, this is a demonstrably false story in The Register. It has been called to their attention repeatedly. At a bare minimum, they were duped by a source, who may have sent them a doctored e-mail. Yet they refuse to investigate, correct, or apologize for their error.
There are other examples of Orlowski’s hackery and basic unwillingness to adhere to the truth. Here’s one good example. Here’s another.
Every writer and reporter makes mistakes from time to time. Responsible journalists correct them, apologize if necessary, and move on. Orlowski, to my knowledge, has never acknowledged a single mistake. That’s a remarkable record, one that probably qualifies him for high office.
Continuing to defend Orlowski on the facts is not a winning strategy, in my book.
But Ed, if you’re going to doubt everything that’s written by anyone at The Register, then you’re never going to be satisfied with anything. “Joe Fay says view from office is nice – but we don’t believe him!”
The point is that, as I said earlier, neither you nor Thomas Hawk has a locus standi in this. If Thomas Hawk’s such a good mate of Robert Scoble, he should persuade him to complain: then you might see something. Demonstrating unambiguously that a mistake has been made that needs to be corrected is the way forward, I’d say.
And – a “winning strategy”? To win what?
Disclosure: I’ve written, as a freelance, for The Register. Go ahead and critique what I wrote there. When people have pointed out mistakes I’ve made (and when they’ve been factual, as opposed to “X are gr8, you suck”, which doesn’t cut it in the postmodern world) I’ve brought it to their attention for correction. AFAIK that’s been done.
I still think there are better ways for people to use their time than a letter-writing campaign that will surely prove fruitless.
Charles, that is nonsense. One needs standing to file a lawsuit, not to write a letter to the editor. If I write a story about a third party and you write to inform me that I made a mistake, and I can verify that a mistake was indeed made, I correct it. Are you honestly saying that I should not correct a mistake in my publication unless the person I wrote about personally writes and demands a correction? That’s a very odd standard!
And when a publication has a proven track record of printing made-up crap and not correcting it, I have every right to be skeptical. You stated as a matter of fact that Scoble has never contacted the Register. How do you know that? The only thing you can say that is demonstrably true is that Joe Fay says so.
And even in the absence of a letter on engraved stationery to Mr. Fay, one can reasonably assume that Mr. Fay and Mr. Orlowski are well aware of Mr. Scoble’s complaints. They just choose to ignore them.
Finally, if you feel this is such a waste of time, why then are you contributing to the comments? In my view, even if The Register fails to ever live up to basic standards of civilized behavior, it helps to document this stuff so that anyone searching for information on the topic gets a good counterpoint.
PS: I read all your stuff, even the pieces that run in The Reg.
Because I enjoy the process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis š
Charles,
You might be interested in the weak semi-correction that now appears at the end of the original post. It begins:
“Robert Scoble emailed us on October 25….”
The same day that Joe Fay said the reason he refused to print a correction is because Scoble never contacted him.
Still want to defend this disgraceful outfit?
You mean, have I stopped beating my virtual wife? (Because that’s a leading question.)
Actually, here’s a thought. The Register’s offices are in London, on GMT. Scoble is on the West Coast, on GMT-8.
Plenty of time therefore for Joe Fay to compose a truthful email saying he’s received nothing, send it to Thomas Hawk, and get on with the day. Then for Scoble – for reasons we’d have to guess at – emails Joe Fay, who subsequently updates the page.
Because come on, consider the alternative. Put yourself in Joe Fay’s position. You’ve received an email from Scoble about the piece. And you’ve been getting emails from Thomas Hawk on and on. Would you seriously set yourself up to be shown up by sending out an email denying having received something from Scoble, when you actually have? That would be shown up at once. It would be monumentally bonkers. Never choose malice when mishap can be blamed.
In fact the timing is so coincidental that it’s almost as if Thomas Hawk, on receiving Joe Fay’s email, contacted Scoble to ask why he hadn’t complained. But I’ve no idea about the timings of any of these emails, and still think the whole point is trivial compared to the wider issue.
Which is this: I don’t think it’s a good thing for journalists to suggest attacks against publications of any colour via their sponsors. If you think something is bad journalism, fine – ignore it. Promote the places you think are good. Let a thousand flowers bloom, and the undeserving ones wilt. Attacking journalism through sponsors is the tactics of the Religious Right, and I think it is reprehensible. Let good journalism drive out bad. That’s the way to move forward.
But Charles, you didn’t answer the non-leading question!
Why on earth does only Scoble have the right to complain about false or misleading information printed in this publication? Why can’t they just be concerned about printing accurate information and swiftly correcting errors, as a reputable publication would?
Informational campaigns that focus on sponsors are not exclusively a tactic of the Religious Right. Nice straw man there! They have a rich history going back throughout the Civil Rights movement in this country. As long as the information is truthful, I see nothing wrong with them.
OK, then, to answer the non-leading question: other people besides Scoble certainly can complain about things they think are wrong. But the only people that editors will ever feel obliged to reply to are the principals in the story. Anything else, such as Thomas Hawk did eventually get, isn’t obligatory – that’s my whole locus standi point from earlier.
Thomas Hawk isn’t the authority on what Scoble did or didn’t do. That’s why his writing multiple emails won’t lead to any changes, but a single one from Scoble will, and did.
As for “reputable publication” – well, hell, I worked 10 years on The Independent, and there were errors every day. There wasn’t a corrections column. Too busy with the next day. That’s the case on most of the newspapers on the UK. (The Guardian does have a corrections column, if you’re wondering).
I still think that attacking journalism through its funding is a bad strategy, and here probably a bad tactic too. If you think something’s bad journalism, trump it – rebut it with evidence.
Plus, imagine how any letter would have to be phrased. “Dear sponsor, I don’t like the fact that you’re advertising on a site where one of the stories out of the hundreds they run every year once had a statement that I thought was wrong, and they won’t correct it, well, they’ve sort of updated it, but anyway, please don’t advertise there.” Half-baked doesn’t describe it. Because you’d have to phrase that letter pretty carefully, if you’re writing to a sponsor in Britain – the libel laws there bite, and if it’s sent to someone in Britain, the law there applies.
Now do you see why I said wayyyy up there that I thought it was all a bad idea?
My final word:
Orlowski has a long record of inaccuracy. This isn’t the first time he’s simply made something up.
The Reg stonewalled on legitimate complaints about the accuracy of their information.
The addition at the end of the story the other day was disgraceful. An editor with a sense of professional responsibility would have said either “We stand behind our story” or “We regret the error.” What they printed was gutless. Not surprising.
Any publication that doesn’t publish timely corrections is short-changing its readers. That’s especially true for Web-based publications, which can’t use the excuse that yesterday’s edition is now lining a birdcage. Thanks to search engines, mistakes can live forever and even be amplified unless corrected.
The truth is an absolute defense against libel.
Andrew Orlowski and the Register were well aware of my claims for far before I ever sent them email.