8 ms·

There's more to this story. I was the first person to be interviewed by this journalist (Michael Thomas @curious_founder). He approached me on Twitter to ask qu

There's more to this story. I was the first person to be interviewed by this journalist (Michael Thomas @curious_founder). He approached me on Twitter to ask questions about digital nomad and remote work life (as I founded Nomad List and have been doing it for years). I told him it'd be great to see more honest depictions as most articles are heavily idealized making it sound all great, when it's not necessarily. It's ups and downs (just like regular life really). What happened next may surprise you. He wrote a hit piece on me changing my entire story that I told him over Skype into a clickbait article of how digital nomadism doesn't work and one of the main people doing it for awhile (en public) even settled down and gave up altogether. http://qz.com/775751/digital-nomad-problems-nomadlist-and-remoteok-founder-pieter-levels-explains-why-he-has-quit-the-nomadic-lifestyle/ http://qz.com/775751/digital-nomad-problems-nomadlist-and-re... I didn't settle down. I spent the summer in Amsterdam. Cause you know, it's a nice place! But he needed to say this to make a polarized hit piece with an angle. And that piece became viral. Resulting in me having to tell people daily that I didn't and getting lots of flack. You may understand it doesn't help if your entire startup is about something and a journalist writes a viral piece how you yourself don't even believe in that anymore. I contacted the journalist and Quartz but they didn't change a thing. It's great this meant his journalistic breakthrough but it hurt me in the process. I'd argue journalists like this are the whole problem we have these days. The articles they write can't be balanced because they need to get pageviews. Every potential to write something interesting quickly turns into clickbait. It turned me off from being interviewed ever again. Doing my own PR by posting comment sections of Hacker News or Reddit seems like a better idea (also see how Elon Musk does exactly this, seems smarter). So yes, I'd argue don't follow this guy's path, instead be nice, honest and write interesting articles. It might take longer but you'll have more karma and long-term more success. And maybe you can convince me to do interviews again, some day :)

swalsh 10y ago
He makes $1k everytime he hits HN's front page. This is his business model.
- mike2477 10y ago
  So is writing 4,000 word articles that ideally help other entrepreneurs. That's a pretty important caveat to include. But hey, I'm biased :)
- chinathrow 10y ago
  How exactly?
  - swalsh 10y ago
    https://www.upupgrow.com/blog/2017/1/3/how-to-validate-demand-for-your-product-part-2 https://www.upupgrow.com/blog/2017/1/3/how-to-validate-deman...
    - Fnoord 10y ago
      If we want to combat clickbaiting, we need to stop making websites profitable the more they're read. If we take action to install uBlock (blocking) or AdNauseam (fake clicking), we make it at least less effective. In the latter case, we turn it around.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        Well, clickbait might mean "BS content" to you, but it means "stuff we want to read" for those clicking on those links. We had clickbait titles for ages now for them to actually be a "bait" for anyone. Almost everybody knows what they'll get when they click on a listicle or a gossipy title or whatever, and they click on because they like the content.
        kristianc 10y ago
        This almost reads like 'We should encourage people to eat junk food because some people like the taste of it.'
        10y ago
tomcam 10y ago
Thanks for sharing that painful incident. Almost anyone who has been directly involved in a story ends up being unpleasantly surprised by the outcome. It is why I don't mourn the deaths of so many media outlets. They earned it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
mike2477 10y ago
So this isn't entirely true either.. Here's my take: What I did wrong - I didn't run the quotes by Pieter before publishing. I was on a tight deadline, and I simply skipped this step. That was a mistake, but not unethical. Journalists are not required to run quotes by their sources. I only quoted from what Pieter told me. Those who want to verify can hear the whole interview here -- https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8k8VS_zkdqYVGx3U01JU0xaYXc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8k8VS_zkdqYVGx3U01JU0xaYXc... - I simplified Pieter's story to fit the narrative I thought I saw. I was blinded by what I thought sounded like a good story. So when Pieter said he had stopped traveling temporarily, I simplified that to "He stopped being a nomad." While he had stopped traveling when I spoke with him (he was in Holland when I interviewed him), he didn't intend to stop traveling forever. When Pieter reached out (and called me lots of pretty harsh names), I emailed the editor and we issued a revision. You can see this in the story. What I didn't do wrong - For the last couple months Pieter has tried to tell everyone that will listen on Twitter what a shitty person I am. He's called me harsh names. He's questioned my ethics. And he himself has simplified a story: that I'm a clickbait seeking journalist with no experience and no morales. This has obviously been pretty hurtful. I've gone to sleep shaking with anger and sadness (partly because I know I made mistakes in my first-ever published story and I'm insecure about that, and partly because reading Reddit threads where people call you a fucking idiot just hurts). I don't believe I was unethical in any of this. As I mentioned, I used direct quotes and told the story that I heard over Skype. - Pieter implied in this comment that I didn't write the truth and that I am embody what is wrong with journalism today. He compared my story to "fake news." I think this is a stretch. Again, I could have written a more comprehensive story if I had more than 800 words and 48 hours. But I don't think any of this can be compared to "fake news." My intent wasn't malicious, and I sought to tell the right story. None of what I wrote was untrue. Pieter just felt that it wasn't the entire story. This is common with profiles. - Pieter also mentioned that I did this for "clicks" but this story was written at a time when I was taking time away from marketing and business. I had no vested interest in the page views my story on Quartz got. I don't even know how many it has. Again, I think this is an oversimplification of a complex human being. I've tried to reach out to Pieter before, but he blocked me on Twitter. So because I know you are reading this here's my message: "Shoot me an email (mthomas dot denver at gmail) if you want to chat. I feel bad about the mistakes I made. But I don't want you always lurking over my shoulder ready to tell the Internet what a shitty person I am. I made mistakes that anyone new to a field could make. I had no malicious intent, and tried to correct the story when you asked. Please stop writing mean things about me and making me feel bad. I'm a human being with feelings and emotions." Over and out.
jventura 10y ago
Bad journalism happens everywhere! Some years ago my father was interviewed for a local newspaper about the stadiums that Portugal had to build to host "Euro 2004", an European soccer cup. He said that he didn't like that the government decided to spend a lot of money on it, etc. A few days later the interview came out, and it was fully reversed, saying that he agreed with the stadiums and that it was a good opportunity for the country, etc. My father is not a know figure, nothing like that, but changing the content entirely??
- devoply 10y ago
  They write what they want to write, you're just a source. So yeah don't think they'll write your story for your benefit. You need to hire an expensive P/R agency if you want to do that. But on the other hand if you know their interests and your interests align with their, in that you can produce a click-baity idea for them then they might bite. But yeah be weary of the media. They have their own problems to solve. They don't care about you or yours.
  - pieterhg 10y ago
    Thank you! I learnt my lesson and lost some of my naivety.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
danso 10y ago
Don't take my comment here as a rebuttal to the facts in your specific case, but I want to point out that the core concept of what journalists do is to filter and summarize. A journalist will never tell the whole story because that is not their job. In a good story, I see my published-output to total-reportage ratio to be about 5% or less, i.e. very little of what I've researched and reported makes it into a published piece. In a typical hour-long interview, only maybe a few minutes of what was actually said may be represented. But ostensibly, that's because the other 55 minutes helped inform me what the relevant 5 minutes are. That said, even in positive stories, sources will call me back and express surprise/disappointment that, for how long I talked to them, they were just a single paragraph in my bigger story. I see it similar to the surprise people have when they hear how a good programmer, ideally, puts out an average of a few lines of code a day. The work is not just about what you physically put out, but what you leave out. Tangentially, it's worth noting that some stories may change midway when more facts are known, and the interview subject doesn't realize that the direction of the story changes. Once I was asked to write a routine profile of a well-known business owner. I stopped by his office and had a very nice interview with him. Then as part of my regular routine, I did a quick check of court records to see if his or his company's name showed up. And it turned out there was a recent case filed by an employee making serious allegations of mistreatment and sexual discrimination. So I called the CEO again and asked him to comment on that, and he expressed displeasure that, rather than telling the story of how great his company was, I chose to focus on cheap linkbaity sleazy distortions. If you hear his side of the story, it's going to sound like I betrayed him to follow my own SJW-narrative to get clicks. That was not the case at all -- I was just a newbie and had no problem writing a happy story. If I had chosen to completely ignore the complicated, negative facts, then it's fair to argue that I was still pursuing a "narrative", one in which everything was going hunky-dory with the company, rather than life being complicated and messy. That said, there are what I consider to be sketchy practices when it comes filtering: when the reporter deliberately misleads you into why they're interviewing you, e.g. telling you they want to do a profile about your awesome volunteer work when really, the story is about you being accused of crimes. And also, choosing to quote you out of context, or using the "sexiest" quote just because it's sexy-sounding, not because it represents your story well at all. Again, not a commentary on your specific case. Just more of a reaction to others who think it's shady when journalists don't tell the "whole story". Journalists never tell the whole story. That's an impossible feat, even if it were desirable.
atmosx 10y ago
This happens really often and with much renowned publications (NYTimes, Washington Post, Guardian, La Repubblica are just a few that I've seen ppl complaining about similar behaviour) so much that it made me think that if you don't have control over the final draft, sometimes is better to avoid it all together.
77yy77yy 10y ago
I had a WSJ journalist threaten me if I don't participate he'll write whatever he wants. Another NY Times journalists wrote completely made up stories and sold their version of it to the public. I really don't like the media, a bunch of bullies and slimeballs.
- jsmthrowaway 10y ago
  I'm extremely suspicious of your first anecdote^, given how vital the care and feeding of sources is for someone who makes it to the WSJ, and given that you're probably not being interviewed by Woodward and Bernstein about a story of grave national importance. I suspect miscommunication is at play here, probably in both cases, and I'm confident in that assessment given the drive-by characterization that follows. Can you back up either anecdote with emails from the journalists in question? Your claims, at face value, would lead to the end of more than one career if publicly demonstrated (since you specifically named two mastheads that would care about such behavior, unlike others). Burden of proof is on you here. Journalists do lean on sources, but the stakes have to be pretty damned high. I'm willing to be wrong here, but there's an underlying narrative to this comment that I think is really driving it. ^ Honestly, it sounds like your clever spin on a common uncooperative source tactic: "if you don't answer my questions I won't have the context to accurately report the story and will have to write what I have," which is just a reporter being honest and giving you an opportunity. I can see that tactic being interpreted as a threat, to be fair, but it isn't.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    In my experience from myself and people I know being misquoted or misrepresented, it's when the stakes are low (except maybe someone's profit motive) that things are at their worst. I haven't had any problems myself with my now-sidelined startup, but when I was a teenager I was misquoted about something as trivial as a local video store. Others I know have been misrepresented to an extreme degree on political topics by local papers.
    - jsmthrowaway 10y ago

swalsh 10y ago

He makes $1k everytime he hits HN's front page. This is his business model.

mike2477 10y ago
So is writing 4,000 word articles that ideally help other entrepreneurs. That's a pretty important caveat to include. But hey, I'm biased :)
chinathrow 10y ago
How exactly?
- swalsh 10y ago
  https://www.upupgrow.com/blog/2017/1/3/how-to-validate-demand-for-your-product-part-2 https://www.upupgrow.com/blog/2017/1/3/how-to-validate-deman...
  - Fnoord 10y ago
    If we want to combat clickbaiting, we need to stop making websites profitable the more they're read. If we take action to install uBlock (blocking) or AdNauseam (fake clicking), we make it at least less effective. In the latter case, we turn it around.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      Well, clickbait might mean "BS content" to you, but it means "stuff we want to read" for those clicking on those links. We had clickbait titles for ages now for them to actually be a "bait" for anyone. Almost everybody knows what they'll get when they click on a listicle or a gossipy title or whatever, and they click on because they like the content.
      - kristianc 10y ago
        This almost reads like 'We should encourage people to eat junk food because some people like the taste of it.'
        10y ago

tomcam 10y ago

Thanks for sharing that painful incident. Almost anyone who has been directly involved in a story ends up being unpleasantly surprised by the outcome. It is why I don't mourn the deaths of so many media outlets. They earned it.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

mike2477 10y ago

So this isn't entirely true either.. Here's my take: What I did wrong - I didn't run the quotes by Pieter before publishing. I was on a tight deadline, and I simply skipped this step. That was a mistake, but not unethical. Journalists are not required to run quotes by their sources. I only quoted from what Pieter told me. Those who want to verify can hear the whole interview here -- https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8k8VS_zkdqYVGx3U01JU0xaYXc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8k8VS_zkdqYVGx3U01JU0xaYXc... - I simplified Pieter's story to fit the narrative I thought I saw. I was blinded by what I thought sounded like a good story. So when Pieter said he had stopped traveling temporarily, I simplified that to "He stopped being a nomad." While he had stopped traveling when I spoke with him (he was in Holland when I interviewed him), he didn't intend to stop traveling forever. When Pieter reached out (and called me lots of pretty harsh names), I emailed the editor and we issued a revision. You can see this in the story. What I didn't do wrong - For the last couple months Pieter has tried to tell everyone that will listen on Twitter what a shitty person I am. He's called me harsh names. He's questioned my ethics. And he himself has simplified a story: that I'm a clickbait seeking journalist with no experience and no morales. This has obviously been pretty hurtful. I've gone to sleep shaking with anger and sadness (partly because I know I made mistakes in my first-ever published story and I'm insecure about that, and partly because reading Reddit threads where people call you a fucking idiot just hurts). I don't believe I was unethical in any of this. As I mentioned, I used direct quotes and told the story that I heard over Skype. - Pieter implied in this comment that I didn't write the truth and that I am embody what is wrong with journalism today. He compared my story to "fake news." I think this is a stretch. Again, I could have written a more comprehensive story if I had more than 800 words and 48 hours. But I don't think any of this can be compared to "fake news." My intent wasn't malicious, and I sought to tell the right story. None of what I wrote was untrue. Pieter just felt that it wasn't the entire story. This is common with profiles. - Pieter also mentioned that I did this for "clicks" but this story was written at a time when I was taking time away from marketing and business. I had no vested interest in the page views my story on Quartz got. I don't even know how many it has. Again, I think this is an oversimplification of a complex human being. I've tried to reach out to Pieter before, but he blocked me on Twitter. So because I know you are reading this here's my message: "Shoot me an email (mthomas dot denver at gmail) if you want to chat. I feel bad about the mistakes I made. But I don't want you always lurking over my shoulder ready to tell the Internet what a shitty person I am. I made mistakes that anyone new to a field could make. I had no malicious intent, and tried to correct the story when you asked. Please stop writing mean things about me and making me feel bad. I'm a human being with feelings and emotions." Over and out.

jventura 10y ago

Bad journalism happens everywhere! Some years ago my father was interviewed for a local newspaper about the stadiums that Portugal had to build to host "Euro 2004", an European soccer cup. He said that he didn't like that the government decided to spend a lot of money on it, etc. A few days later the interview came out, and it was fully reversed, saying that he agreed with the stadiums and that it was a good opportunity for the country, etc. My father is not a know figure, nothing like that, but changing the content entirely??

devoply 10y ago
They write what they want to write, you're just a source. So yeah don't think they'll write your story for your benefit. You need to hire an expensive P/R agency if you want to do that. But on the other hand if you know their interests and your interests align with their, in that you can produce a click-baity idea for them then they might bite. But yeah be weary of the media. They have their own problems to solve. They don't care about you or yours.
- pieterhg 10y ago
  Thank you! I learnt my lesson and lost some of my naivety.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

danso 10y ago

Don't take my comment here as a rebuttal to the facts in your specific case, but I want to point out that the core concept of what journalists do is to filter and summarize. A journalist will never tell the whole story because that is not their job. In a good story, I see my published-output to total-reportage ratio to be about 5% or less, i.e. very little of what I've researched and reported makes it into a published piece. In a typical hour-long interview, only maybe a few minutes of what was actually said may be represented. But ostensibly, that's because the other 55 minutes helped inform me what the relevant 5 minutes are. That said, even in positive stories, sources will call me back and express surprise/disappointment that, for how long I talked to them, they were just a single paragraph in my bigger story. I see it similar to the surprise people have when they hear how a good programmer, ideally, puts out an average of a few lines of code a day. The work is not just about what you physically put out, but what you leave out. Tangentially, it's worth noting that some stories may change midway when more facts are known, and the interview subject doesn't realize that the direction of the story changes. Once I was asked to write a routine profile of a well-known business owner. I stopped by his office and had a very nice interview with him. Then as part of my regular routine, I did a quick check of court records to see if his or his company's name showed up. And it turned out there was a recent case filed by an employee making serious allegations of mistreatment and sexual discrimination. So I called the CEO again and asked him to comment on that, and he expressed displeasure that, rather than telling the story of how great his company was, I chose to focus on cheap linkbaity sleazy distortions. If you hear his side of the story, it's going to sound like I betrayed him to follow my own SJW-narrative to get clicks. That was not the case at all -- I was just a newbie and had no problem writing a happy story. If I had chosen to completely ignore the complicated, negative facts, then it's fair to argue that I was still pursuing a "narrative", one in which everything was going hunky-dory with the company, rather than life being complicated and messy. That said, there are what I consider to be sketchy practices when it comes filtering: when the reporter deliberately misleads you into why they're interviewing you, e.g. telling you they want to do a profile about your awesome volunteer work when really, the story is about you being accused of crimes. And also, choosing to quote you out of context, or using the "sexiest" quote just because it's sexy-sounding, not because it represents your story well at all. Again, not a commentary on your specific case. Just more of a reaction to others who think it's shady when journalists don't tell the "whole story". Journalists never tell the whole story. That's an impossible feat, even if it were desirable.

atmosx 10y ago

This happens really often and with much renowned publications (NYTimes, Washington Post, Guardian, La Repubblica are just a few that I've seen ppl complaining about similar behaviour) so much that it made me think that if you don't have control over the final draft, sometimes is better to avoid it all together.

77yy77yy 10y ago

I had a WSJ journalist threaten me if I don't participate he'll write whatever he wants. Another NY Times journalists wrote completely made up stories and sold their version of it to the public. I really don't like the media, a bunch of bullies and slimeballs.

jsmthrowaway 10y ago
I'm extremely suspicious of your first anecdote^, given how vital the care and feeding of sources is for someone who makes it to the WSJ, and given that you're probably not being interviewed by Woodward and Bernstein about a story of grave national importance. I suspect miscommunication is at play here, probably in both cases, and I'm confident in that assessment given the drive-by characterization that follows. Can you back up either anecdote with emails from the journalists in question? Your claims, at face value, would lead to the end of more than one career if publicly demonstrated (since you specifically named two mastheads that would care about such behavior, unlike others). Burden of proof is on you here. Journalists do lean on sources, but the stakes have to be pretty damned high. I'm willing to be wrong here, but there's an underlying narrative to this comment that I think is really driving it. ^ Honestly, it sounds like your clever spin on a common uncooperative source tactic: "if you don't answer my questions I won't have the context to accurately report the story and will have to write what I have," which is just a reporter being honest and giving you an opportunity. I can see that tactic being interpreted as a threat, to be fair, but it isn't.
- nitrogen 10y ago
  In my experience from myself and people I know being misquoted or misrepresented, it's when the stakes are low (except maybe someone's profit motive) that things are at their worst. I haven't had any problems myself with my now-sidelined startup, but when I was a teenager I was misquoted about something as trivial as a local video store. Others I know have been misrepresented to an extreme degree on political topics by local papers.
  - jsmthrowaway 10y ago