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Quibi’s CEO Meg Whitman Compared Reporters to Sexual Predators
- duxup 7y agoI suppose there has always been tension between executives and reporters or more generally what folks call "the media" these days. But I find the rhetoric and severity of the language used extremely disheartening. So many folks willing to throw such vitriol towards people and things it feels like folks want to race towards the only valid information is that are those echoing in our heads...
- afandian 7y agoThis came up earlier in the week. An excellent, if depressing, summary of lot of new behavioural norms on the net and beyond. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22101244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22101244
- duxup 7y agoThank you for that link. I think I saw that link and honestly misread the title and figured it was a story about fake beef and moved on... maybe that says something too.
- kaonashi 7y agoJust because attention is unwelcome does not necessarily mean it’s unwarranted
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- covercash 7y agoWell I guess she would know since she allegedly raised a sexual predator herself... https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/meg-whitman-son-griffith-harsh-v-accused-sexual-assault-princeton-classmate-report-article-1.188433 https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/meg-whitman-son-gr...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mirimir 7y agoLouis Brandeis and Samuel Warren published the first notable article about privacy in 1890, "The Right to Privacy".[0] It's often cited for the "the right to be let alone". What's not well known is that its focus was newspaper reporting, which it basically characterized as "gossip". 0) https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr2.html https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/priv...
- mc32 7y agoI think she’s referring to the social engineering part of the activity of getting people on the inside to open up and give up company information. From a psychological perspective she’s probably right. The results sought are obviously quite different.
- duxup 7y agoI feel like the comparison to adults talking to each other ... and someone grooming someone underage. That's just way too distant psychology wise. Generally the implication of the adult and child situation is some sort of distinct power advantage the adult has.
- mirimir 7y agoWell, except that it's not just children who are victims of sexual predation. For example, I recall a recent article that basically redefined seduction as sexual predation.
- justincredible 7y agoYour first statement is correct, but that article is a ludicrous example.
- mirimir 7y agoEdit: OK, I'm wrong about the article. It's about Gabriel Matzneff "seducing" young girls: > It is only a shocking new #MeToo memoir by one of his victims, Vanessa Springora–seduced by Matzneff when she was 13, and he almost 50–that has prodded French conscience on the question of sexual consent to a point of no return. But about the term generally:[1] > As the issue of sexual predation in the workplace has become increasingly prominent, there are calls to provide employees with special training to minimize this behavior in the future. 0) https://www.forbes.com/sites/tamarathiessen/2020/01/21/gabriel-matzneff-french-furore-on-acclaimed-writers-child-sex-abuse-4-decades-on/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/tamarathiessen/2020/01/21/gabri... 1) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inside-the-criminal-mind/201712/the-thinking-processes-sexual-predators https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inside-the-criminal-...
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoI have trouble understanding why anyone would possibly care about this story.
- neonate 7y agoIt's a new twist in the war between tech and media companies for a prominent CEO to speak this strongly, even if her current company isn't so prominent and even if what she said wasn't intended to be public.
- ArtWomb 7y agoI can't speak to the article in question. But the Quibi CES 2020 keynote is worth a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOG9yNRjxk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOG9yNRjxk The idea of using a camera's extended sensory capabilities to create new video viewing experiences is quite exciting. But Quibi feels high risk. Even with old masters such as Spielberg at the helm, asking consumers in the age of TikTok to pay for a four minute film seems worthy of scrutiny ;)
- 1123581321 7y agoI hope the different edits for portrait and landscape eventually become standard. I also think the short, serial stories by prolific and talented people is a good idea, assuming there are a lot of episodes and they release frequently. I’d hoped for more of that on YouTube. I don’t think Quibi will be the service providing these feature in five years though.
- Animats 7y agoHuh? She's not complaining about something in her personal life. She's complaining about press coverage of her startup having trouble getting another funding round. That's ordinary business news. It's something VCs, suppliers, customers, and competitors all want to know if they're in that sector. It's probably known outside the company, since fund-raising will have been in progress.
- dang 7y agoAs with previous articles [1], The Information has unlocked this one for HN readers. Thanks! We've changed the URL from https://www.theinformation.com/articles/quibis-ceo-meg-whitman-compares-reporters-to-sexual-predators https://www.theinformation.com/articles/quibis-ceo-meg-whitm.... [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22the%20information%22%20unlock&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- vinaypai 7y agoWhat did she actually (allegedly) say? As far as I can tell from the article she said reporters "groom" sources, and The Information then extrapolated that to draw a comparison to sexual predators because "the term ‘grooming’ has been used by child safety advocates to describe how predators gain trust with their victims", which seems to be quite a stretch.
- arkades 7y agoNot a single article covering this has the quote - they all refer back to the The Information article. I suspect if the quote was as damning as it is being made out to be, it would be included.
- whakim 7y agoThey probably don't have the quote. It's not surprising that they don't, because whoever heard it probably wasn't taking notes or something, they're just recollecting what was said. I think it's still pretty clear from the article that the term "grooming" was used as part of a larger analogy between reporters and sexual predators though. Either way, and regardless of how "damning" this actually is, Quibi's response isn't really denying that it happened.
- vinaypai 7y agoIf they don't have the quote, a credible journalist wouldn't run the story.
- whakim 7y agoI don't agree with that. Obviously it's better to have a quote, but in many cases having an exact quote isn't possible. Most "credible journalists" write stories detailing "what happened" all the time without exact quotes, because if that was the standard required then we would never hear about anything that wasn't public.
- 7y ago
- pattisapu 7y ago"But children, I submit, cannot be fooled. They can only be betrayed by adults, not fooled—for adults, unlike children, are fooled very easily, and only because they wish to be. Children—innocence being both real and monstrous— intimidate, harass, blackmail, terrify, and sometimes even kill one another. But no child can fool another child the way one adult can fool another. It would be impossible, for example, for children to bring off the spectacle—the scandal—of the Republican or Democratic conventions. They do not have enough to hide—or, if you like, to flaunt." —James Baldwin, "Dark Days" [1] [1] https://classic.esquire.com/article/1980/10/1/dark-days https://classic.esquire.com/article/1980/10/1/dark-days
- prawn 7y agoHN's comment policy on arguing in good faith seems to apply to this story. Surely we can read her comment and understand her intent rather than find a way to be upset? The media is served by manufacturing and fanning outrage. The HN community shouldn't be part of that, IMO.
- majormajor 7y ago> Surely we can read her comment and understand her intent rather than find a way to be upset? It would be helpful if the article actually included the comment. Instead, it's hard to discuss at all, since it's a very hollow story.
- pmarreck 7y agoSo basically whenever there's ulterior motive (profit, sex, whatever... but mostly profit or sex), the relationship's tainted? Not very shocking. Ever befriend a real estate agent who then finds out you're selling a house? Ever spend a year as a friend with someone before realizing that person won't rest until they can bang you? Ever befriend ANYONE in an MLM scheme or end up with one in your extended family (ugh)? Ever marry someone to become a citizen? Ever wonder why your wife wants to keep hanging out with that one particular couple only to find out she has a crush on the other dude? Etc. With regards to reporting, it is probably worse lately than in past years what with the rather severe need to twist things into clickbait to get ad dollars instead of being boringly sincere.
- motohagiography 7y agoShe's not wrong. Talking to journalists is vanity, and that's how many reporters justify obtaining peoples trust and then betraying it. Personally, I thought quite a few journalists I met were actuated by a kind of sadism, where to bait and smite people they envied was something they really enjoyed. Comparing this trap setting mentality to a perversion is not as far a leap as it might seem. The lunatics who threaten and harass them are no better, but the whole thing is a seedy enterprise. Whitman is right to caution staff about them. Anyone who has had their reputation harmed by having a quote taken out of context and used to drive a writers narrative can attest to this. Journalism as a story form relies on conflict, and preying on vanity to draw people into conflict is literally the game.
- gowld 7y agoThis is "fake news" libel. Flagged.