4 ms·

Ok, lets roll with your idea that anonymously publishing true information is unethical. If a woman blogged unkind and sexist behavior at a tech company, but hi

Ok, lets roll with your idea that anonymously publishing true information is unethical. If a woman blogged unkind and sexist behavior at a tech company, but hid her name to avoid the backlash (like Michael), that would be unethical. I guess she'd be an "asshat", right? Same thing for a journalist using an anonymous source? Bad journalistic ethics? https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/that-time-i-was-caught-cheating-sucking-face-and-sitting-on-a-white-man-s-lap-at-work https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/that-time-i-was-caught-c... I do indeed have a poor understanding of ethics and I'm pretty open about it. It's hardly an easy subject. Often I think I've found the "critical element" and suddenly swapping around the personalities radically changes my intuition.

eksith 12y ago
If a woman blogged unkind and sexist behavior at a tech company, but hid her name to avoid the backlash (like Michael), that would be unethical. I guess she'd be an "asshat", right? Same thing for a journalist using an anonymous source? Did you just compare a woman blogging about a legitimate grievance that makes her work environment intolerable to someone suggesting "Fair game" practices a la Scientology for criticizing his company?
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Yes. That's what makes ethics hard. According to alex, the "critical difference" is anonymity. On this dimension, the sympathetic figure and the big jerk do not differ. So if he is correct about anonymity, then they are indeed comparable. The point is to test whether he really believes his stated principle or whether it's merely a convenient justification to criticize big jerks that he dislikes. If you think that's not right, that's fine. Then come up with your own principle separating Emil Michael's journalism proposal from Pando/Valleywag. I'll repeat this exercise - trying to come up with a sympathetic figure on the other side of your principle and see if you still support the conclusions. That's how you test whether your ethical principles are really valid.
  - alexqgb 12y ago
    "According to alex, the "critical difference" is anonymity." Again, what is with this twisting of people's words and misrepresenting what they said? Just so you're clear, I wasn't differentiating ethical from unethical when I used the phrase "critical difference". I was distinguishing journalism from not journalism. Big, big difference.
alexqgb 12y ago
There you go again, with the dishonesty. Seriously, what is wrong with you? Everyone on this thread can see that I did not say "anonymously publishing true information is unethical." That's your idea, not mine. Please don't put words I didn't say in my mouth. What I did say is that nothing the Uber exec was talking about could be construed as journalism - even if he hired journalists to do it - and that, accordingly, what he was describing could not be considered "fair play" (which was, in essence, how you framed it).
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Have you considered the possibility that I merely didn't completely understand everything you said? You mentioned ethics repeatedly in your post, so I thought your "critical difference" referred to ethics rather than merely the definition of journalism. I thought the you said anonymity was the critical point making it unethical (given your reference to "journalistic ethics". Now it sounds like you merely meant that it doesn't fit some definition of journalism. Is that right? So would a fair characterization of your beliefs would be that Michael's proposal would be ethical (much like the anonymous hypothetical woman I mentioned, or the real anonymous woman I linked to) but not journalism? Or is it unethical for some reason that you didn't mention?
  - alexqgb 12y ago
    No fajitas, it did not occur to me that you were incapable of interpreting a basic English sentence with a clearly defined subject and modifier, and that you'd resolve your confusion by fishing around for words scattered elsewhere in the post to fill in the blanks. But the point, again, is that you described what the Uber exec proposed as "hiring journalists to do journalism to journalists." And the point you missed is that what he was describing was manifestly not journalism, for reasons I went on to describe. There are several other reasons why his line of thought was hugely unethical, but those are separate issues, and given your tendency to put words in the mouths of others, that's not a conversation I'm willing to have with you.
    - dang 12y ago

eksith 12y ago

If a woman blogged unkind and sexist behavior at a tech company, but hid her name to avoid the backlash (like Michael), that would be unethical. I guess she'd be an "asshat", right? Same thing for a journalist using an anonymous source? Did you just compare a woman blogging about a legitimate grievance that makes her work environment intolerable to someone suggesting "Fair game" practices a la Scientology for criticizing his company?

yummyfajitas 12y ago
Yes. That's what makes ethics hard. According to alex, the "critical difference" is anonymity. On this dimension, the sympathetic figure and the big jerk do not differ. So if he is correct about anonymity, then they are indeed comparable. The point is to test whether he really believes his stated principle or whether it's merely a convenient justification to criticize big jerks that he dislikes. If you think that's not right, that's fine. Then come up with your own principle separating Emil Michael's journalism proposal from Pando/Valleywag. I'll repeat this exercise - trying to come up with a sympathetic figure on the other side of your principle and see if you still support the conclusions. That's how you test whether your ethical principles are really valid.
- alexqgb 12y ago
  "According to alex, the "critical difference" is anonymity." Again, what is with this twisting of people's words and misrepresenting what they said? Just so you're clear, I wasn't differentiating ethical from unethical when I used the phrase "critical difference". I was distinguishing journalism from not journalism. Big, big difference.

alexqgb 12y ago

There you go again, with the dishonesty. Seriously, what is wrong with you? Everyone on this thread can see that I did not say "anonymously publishing true information is unethical." That's your idea, not mine. Please don't put words I didn't say in my mouth. What I did say is that nothing the Uber exec was talking about could be construed as journalism - even if he hired journalists to do it - and that, accordingly, what he was describing could not be considered "fair play" (which was, in essence, how you framed it).

yummyfajitas 12y ago
Have you considered the possibility that I merely didn't completely understand everything you said? You mentioned ethics repeatedly in your post, so I thought your "critical difference" referred to ethics rather than merely the definition of journalism. I thought the you said anonymity was the critical point making it unethical (given your reference to "journalistic ethics". Now it sounds like you merely meant that it doesn't fit some definition of journalism. Is that right? So would a fair characterization of your beliefs would be that Michael's proposal would be ethical (much like the anonymous hypothetical woman I mentioned, or the real anonymous woman I linked to) but not journalism? Or is it unethical for some reason that you didn't mention?
- alexqgb 12y ago
  No fajitas, it did not occur to me that you were incapable of interpreting a basic English sentence with a clearly defined subject and modifier, and that you'd resolve your confusion by fishing around for words scattered elsewhere in the post to fill in the blanks. But the point, again, is that you described what the Uber exec proposed as "hiring journalists to do journalism to journalists." And the point you missed is that what he was describing was manifestly not journalism, for reasons I went on to describe. There are several other reasons why his line of thought was hugely unethical, but those are separate issues, and given your tendency to put words in the mouths of others, that's not a conversation I'm willing to have with you.
  - dang 12y ago