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> 1. In most responsible news organizations, there is a significant firewall between advertising and news. In two places I worked, the sales people weren't even

> 1. In most responsible news organizations, there is a significant firewall between advertising and news. In two places I worked, the sales people weren't even allowed to go into the newsroom. Editor: "So your last screed about Facebook got a ton of clicks and shares, can you do another?" Tell me more about that firewall. In modern news orgs, you're selling the words next to the content, not the readership. > 2. News organizations are not IT departments. A reporter is not involved in how a web site is built, or what goes on behind the scenes. There are different people in different departments for that. Journalists are inquisitive, intellectually curious types. You have to call into question the ethics of someone prepared to write about something they have a good idea that their own company engages in. > 3. Just because a newspaper does something bad with its web site does not make what happens at Facebook/Google/etc... any less bad. SV needs to get over the whole "But Bobby jumped off the bridge, too!" mentality. This is just tu quoque. It's not exonerating Facebook at all (though Facebook typically have a deterministic data set to work with, which reduces the kind of shady practices they need to engage in with third party data sets), it's merely saying that you don't get a free pass on calling this kind of stuff out if you're engaging in the same kind of data gathering yourself.

jonfw 8y ago
> Journalists are inquisitive, intellectually curious types. You have to call into question the ethics of someone prepared to write about something they have a good idea that their own company engages in. So what is the ethical thing to do? Quit your job? Choose not to report on the unethical behavior? Escalate internally instead of externally? Write the story about the company you work for, knowing full well that you won't ever be published and it will end up being pointless? I don't think anybody wants to give buzzfeed a free pass, but I just don't see how buzzfeed's data practices reflect on the ethics of their individual journalists.
- WalterSear 8y ago
  The cost of an action does not change its ethical merit, or lack thereof. People are responsible for doing unethical things, even if someone ordered them to.
  - jonfw 8y ago
    But this guy isn't even being ordered to do anything unethical. He just wrote an article. The same people that ordered him to write this article have also ordered other people to do unethical things. But that's a different scenario than you just mentioned. So if you think this is immoral, than I imagine that your actual argument is more of a guilt by association thing.

jonfw 8y ago

> Journalists are inquisitive, intellectually curious types. You have to call into question the ethics of someone prepared to write about something they have a good idea that their own company engages in. So what is the ethical thing to do? Quit your job? Choose not to report on the unethical behavior? Escalate internally instead of externally? Write the story about the company you work for, knowing full well that you won't ever be published and it will end up being pointless? I don't think anybody wants to give buzzfeed a free pass, but I just don't see how buzzfeed's data practices reflect on the ethics of their individual journalists.

WalterSear 8y ago
The cost of an action does not change its ethical merit, or lack thereof. People are responsible for doing unethical things, even if someone ordered them to.
- jonfw 8y ago
  But this guy isn't even being ordered to do anything unethical. He just wrote an article. The same people that ordered him to write this article have also ordered other people to do unethical things. But that's a different scenario than you just mentioned. So if you think this is immoral, than I imagine that your actual argument is more of a guilt by association thing.