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Ok, I'll ask the obvious question. Why is this "abhorrent"? Is it also "abhorrent" that Sarah Lacy and others at Pando report on the personal life of Uber and o

Ok, I'll ask the obvious question. Why is this "abhorrent"? Is it also "abhorrent" that Sarah Lacy and others at Pando report on the personal life of Uber and other tech execs? http://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-most-awful-things-travis-kalanick-said-in-his-gq-profile/ http://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-mo... http://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-big-silicon-valley-asshole-game/ http://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-bi... tl;dr; Why isn't turnabout fair play?

rsobers 12y ago
To start, the Uber exec was suggesting that they do their dirt-digging anonymously ("Nobody would know it was us."). Also, those articles you linked to are examples of journalists providing commentary around direct quotes or facts/reports about the company. AFAIK, Sarah Lacy didn't dig up and expose personal information about people at Uber nor their families.
klochner 12y ago
I'm not sure if you really don't understand or are just arguing to be provocative, but I'll play along to make the point. It's morally equivalent to saying that you would fund a smear campaign against a judge or juror that ruled against you. It's one small step from making threats of physical violence to silence negative reporting. The press is considered an independent 3rd party bystander that is a crucial underpinning of any functioning democracy. Making aggressive threats against the press threatens the roots of civilized society, and is "abhorrent" because it's a tactic used by nearly every oppressive/fascist regime.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Are journalists who dig up dirt without making threats a "small step" from people who use violence against people without making threats first? There is a core difference between threats of violence (such as what is done by oppressive regimes) and threats of telling the truth. And it's a bit silly to call Pando and Sarah Lacy an "independent 3rd party bystander". The entire enterprise is an extremely opinionated anti-tech enterprise - kind of like what the Uber execs proposed building, just with a slightly different target. It sounds like you are saying the people who call themselves independent media deserve special privileges that the rest of us don't get. Is that correct?
  - klochner 12y ago
    Sarah Lacy would be skewered by the public if she said her goal was digging up dirt against a specific individual. Similarly, she'd probably catch some negative press if she made questionable statements in a GQ article. So no, she doesn't get special privileges. If Uber wants to open a newspaper to advance their political agenda, they at least have to go through the pretense of reporting on everything, a la Rupert Murdoch.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      So the act of digging up dirt is acceptable. It's only doing it in a targeted manner, rather than opportunistically, that's the problem. I'm sure she might catch negative press - lots of harmless behavior creates negative press. I'm not asking how to manage the media, I have no interest in being a PR flack. I'm asking whether reporting on her questionable statements (the sort of thing opposition researchers do) would be "abhorrent". Similarly, would exposing and reporting on her personal emails and other parts of her private life (as Pando has done to Evan Spiegel) be "abhorrent"?
- pravda 12y ago
  >It's one small step from making threats of physical violence to silence negative reporting. You gotta be kidding me! You really think that journalists should be able to write whatever false, defamatory nonsense they please, free from any consequence? I would guess you have no experience with journalists.
  - SoftwareMaven 12y ago
    That would be libel and could be handled in court. Most civilizations left Eye-for-an-eye justice behind long ago.
rhizome 12y ago
Who says it isn't? I have read not a single iota of "Sarah Lacy is pure as the driven snow, this story about Uber taking revenge on the media proves it." I think a better question from your standpoint is not zero-sum, but "do they both suck?"
danso 12y ago
Sorry, but can you point me to the place where Sarah Lacy and Pando investigated the "personal life of Uber"? I can't speak for all the other things in that Pando article you link to, but when I read the snippet about Uber, I see something about how the Uber's CEO bragged about "Boober" and I see that that brag was derived from a public interview that the CEO gave GQ: http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201403/uber-cab-confessions?currentPage=1 http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201403/uber-cab-c... So are you equating ripping on a public interview with GQ Magazine with this allegation by Buzzfeed? - > Then he returned to the opposition research plan. Uber’s dirt-diggers, Michael said, could expose Lacy. They could, in particular, prove a particular and very specific claim about her personal life. What does "turnabout" mean to you exactly?
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  I linked to Sarah Lacy reporting on Evan Spiegel's private life. Why is it acceptable to expose his private emails, but not Sarah Lacy's private life? If the opposition researchers dug up unpleasant things Sarah Lacy said publicly (but are now forgotten), would that be acceptable to you? (This is normally a big part of what such researchers do.)
  - danso 12y ago
    Like I said, I don't know much off the top of my head about all the other things Pando could have possibly reported on, but to humor you, I looked up the stuff about Evan Spiegel. It looks like it's sourced to a Valleywag article here: http://valleywag.gawker.com/fuck-bitches-get-leid-the-sleazy-frat-emails-of-snap-1582604137 http://valleywag.gawker.com/fuck-bitches-get-leid-the-sleazy... So to answer your question, no, I would not have an issue with researchers digging up things that Sarah Lacy has said publicly, especially if they pertain to the quality and integrity of her reporting. So I guess we're left to interpret whether her journalistic credentials is what BuzzFeed is claiming to be targeted here: > They could, in particular, prove a particular and very specific claim about her personal life And the last graf of BuzzFeed's piece doesn't entice us to give Uber's exec the benefit of the doubt: > At the Waverly Inn dinner, it was suggested that a plan like the one Michael floated could become a problem for Uber. Michael responded: “Nobody would know it was us.” I've worked in investigative journalism for a few years and have worked on projects that dug up things about people. But never have my colleagues nor I did such work under surreptitious means. We made our identities clear during the reporting, and we printed our findings and allegations under our own names, and we took the criticism that came toward us. As far as I can tell, Lacy operates under the same rules of the game. So again, I ask, where do you see the fair turnabout between what Lacy does as a journalist and what BuzzFeed reports to have heard from the dinner?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
hft_throwaway 12y ago
https://gigaom.com/2012/01/16/sarah-lacys-pandodaily-launches-with-2-5-million-in-funding/ https://gigaom.com/2012/01/16/sarah-lacys-pandodaily-launche... http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/23/lyft-a16z/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/23/lyft-a16z/ http://www.cnbc.com/id/102008782 http://www.cnbc.com/id/102008782
snowwrestler 12y ago
Because freedom of the press is a Big Deal to many Americans, and attacking members of the media personally is a time-honored and effective way to reduce that freedom. Because there is a big gradient in power between the executives of a multi-billion-dollar venture-backed global company (Uber), and the editor of a small tech news site (Pando). People don't generally like giant companies using their considerable power for personal vendettas. Because when the knock against Uber is that it's over-aggressive and not sensitive to women, this is the sort of story that seems to strongly confirm that knock.
- SamReidHughes 12y ago
  None of those answer the question why it is bad, you're just explaining why it looks bad.

rsobers 12y ago

To start, the Uber exec was suggesting that they do their dirt-digging anonymously ("Nobody would know it was us."). Also, those articles you linked to are examples of journalists providing commentary around direct quotes or facts/reports about the company. AFAIK, Sarah Lacy didn't dig up and expose personal information about people at Uber nor their families.

klochner 12y ago

I'm not sure if you really don't understand or are just arguing to be provocative, but I'll play along to make the point. It's morally equivalent to saying that you would fund a smear campaign against a judge or juror that ruled against you. It's one small step from making threats of physical violence to silence negative reporting. The press is considered an independent 3rd party bystander that is a crucial underpinning of any functioning democracy. Making aggressive threats against the press threatens the roots of civilized society, and is "abhorrent" because it's a tactic used by nearly every oppressive/fascist regime.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
Are journalists who dig up dirt without making threats a "small step" from people who use violence against people without making threats first? There is a core difference between threats of violence (such as what is done by oppressive regimes) and threats of telling the truth. And it's a bit silly to call Pando and Sarah Lacy an "independent 3rd party bystander". The entire enterprise is an extremely opinionated anti-tech enterprise - kind of like what the Uber execs proposed building, just with a slightly different target. It sounds like you are saying the people who call themselves independent media deserve special privileges that the rest of us don't get. Is that correct?
- klochner 12y ago
  Sarah Lacy would be skewered by the public if she said her goal was digging up dirt against a specific individual. Similarly, she'd probably catch some negative press if she made questionable statements in a GQ article. So no, she doesn't get special privileges. If Uber wants to open a newspaper to advance their political agenda, they at least have to go through the pretense of reporting on everything, a la Rupert Murdoch.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    So the act of digging up dirt is acceptable. It's only doing it in a targeted manner, rather than opportunistically, that's the problem. I'm sure she might catch negative press - lots of harmless behavior creates negative press. I'm not asking how to manage the media, I have no interest in being a PR flack. I'm asking whether reporting on her questionable statements (the sort of thing opposition researchers do) would be "abhorrent". Similarly, would exposing and reporting on her personal emails and other parts of her private life (as Pando has done to Evan Spiegel) be "abhorrent"?
pravda 12y ago
>It's one small step from making threats of physical violence to silence negative reporting. You gotta be kidding me! You really think that journalists should be able to write whatever false, defamatory nonsense they please, free from any consequence? I would guess you have no experience with journalists.
- SoftwareMaven 12y ago
  That would be libel and could be handled in court. Most civilizations left Eye-for-an-eye justice behind long ago.

rhizome 12y ago

Who says it isn't? I have read not a single iota of "Sarah Lacy is pure as the driven snow, this story about Uber taking revenge on the media proves it." I think a better question from your standpoint is not zero-sum, but "do they both suck?"

danso 12y ago

Sorry, but can you point me to the place where Sarah Lacy and Pando investigated the "personal life of Uber"? I can't speak for all the other things in that Pando article you link to, but when I read the snippet about Uber, I see something about how the Uber's CEO bragged about "Boober" and I see that that brag was derived from a public interview that the CEO gave GQ: http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201403/uber-cab-confessions?currentPage=1 http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201403/uber-cab-c... So are you equating ripping on a public interview with GQ Magazine with this allegation by Buzzfeed? - > Then he returned to the opposition research plan. Uber’s dirt-diggers, Michael said, could expose Lacy. They could, in particular, prove a particular and very specific claim about her personal life. What does "turnabout" mean to you exactly?

yummyfajitas 12y ago
I linked to Sarah Lacy reporting on Evan Spiegel's private life. Why is it acceptable to expose his private emails, but not Sarah Lacy's private life? If the opposition researchers dug up unpleasant things Sarah Lacy said publicly (but are now forgotten), would that be acceptable to you? (This is normally a big part of what such researchers do.)
- danso 12y ago
  Like I said, I don't know much off the top of my head about all the other things Pando could have possibly reported on, but to humor you, I looked up the stuff about Evan Spiegel. It looks like it's sourced to a Valleywag article here: http://valleywag.gawker.com/fuck-bitches-get-leid-the-sleazy-frat-emails-of-snap-1582604137 http://valleywag.gawker.com/fuck-bitches-get-leid-the-sleazy... So to answer your question, no, I would not have an issue with researchers digging up things that Sarah Lacy has said publicly, especially if they pertain to the quality and integrity of her reporting. So I guess we're left to interpret whether her journalistic credentials is what BuzzFeed is claiming to be targeted here: > They could, in particular, prove a particular and very specific claim about her personal life And the last graf of BuzzFeed's piece doesn't entice us to give Uber's exec the benefit of the doubt: > At the Waverly Inn dinner, it was suggested that a plan like the one Michael floated could become a problem for Uber. Michael responded: “Nobody would know it was us.” I've worked in investigative journalism for a few years and have worked on projects that dug up things about people. But never have my colleagues nor I did such work under surreptitious means. We made our identities clear during the reporting, and we printed our findings and allegations under our own names, and we took the criticism that came toward us. As far as I can tell, Lacy operates under the same rules of the game. So again, I ask, where do you see the fair turnabout between what Lacy does as a journalist and what BuzzFeed reports to have heard from the dinner?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

hft_throwaway 12y ago

https://gigaom.com/2012/01/16/sarah-lacys-pandodaily-launches-with-2-5-million-in-funding/ https://gigaom.com/2012/01/16/sarah-lacys-pandodaily-launche... http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/23/lyft-a16z/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/23/lyft-a16z/ http://www.cnbc.com/id/102008782 http://www.cnbc.com/id/102008782

snowwrestler 12y ago

Because freedom of the press is a Big Deal to many Americans, and attacking members of the media personally is a time-honored and effective way to reduce that freedom. Because there is a big gradient in power between the executives of a multi-billion-dollar venture-backed global company (Uber), and the editor of a small tech news site (Pando). People don't generally like giant companies using their considerable power for personal vendettas. Because when the knock against Uber is that it's over-aggressive and not sensitive to women, this is the sort of story that seems to strongly confirm that knock.

SamReidHughes 12y ago
None of those answer the question why it is bad, you're just explaining why it looks bad.