4 ms·
Seems like a big conflict of interest here and changes the tone from "see this from another perspective" to "I am defending my friend, so everything I write is
by dkrich 12y ago
Seems like a big conflict of interest here and changes the tone from "see this from another perspective" to "I am defending my friend, so everything I write is going to be heavily biased"
Why? She is probably one of three or four people on the planet qualified to speak to what actually happened there. The idea that she should recuse herself from publicly posting an account of what she saw first-hand just because she's friends with the subject of the controversy doesn't hold water in my opinion. In fact, since pretty much every article that has come out (all by people who were not themselves in attendance) has had the goal of making attacks against the company and its executives, perhaps a friend of an executive who can offer a personal insight into what happened is the best person of all to write an account of what really happened.
It seems that the public at large is more than happy to be spoon-fed facts from Pando Daily, Gawker, and BuzzFeed who carelessly level poorly-researched personal attacks heavily-weighted with personal opinions and biases passed off as "journalism" without actually asking themselves the simple question- "What has my own personal experience been?" I for one like Uber and Lyft, and use both regularly. Never have I or anybody I know experienced any serious problem after having used them several hundred times, despite the constant onslaught of accusations that females are at risk using it.
Compare that to the taxi industry. In fact, just last week, after learning that I needed to pay for my ride with a card for expense reasons, refused to let me out of the cab and tried to drive me to an atm against my will and I had to call the police to make him stop the car. This is a true story. Happened last time I took a cab. Despite the fact that it is a law where I live that cabs MUST take a credit card.
I'm certainly not suggesting that it is okay to spy on people with the intent of blackmailing or evening the score (and I suspect most everyone would agree with that). I'm just suggesting that we be fair in our criticism. Blogs have a very real incentive to get the most page views that they can and are more than happy to do so at anybody's expense. I've seen that happen enough to know not to take anything I read on the internet at face-value.
- rosser 12y agoDisclosing the friendship up front isn't a recusal. It's simple honesty.
- dkrich 12y agoWell then in that case, can we ask the likes of Pando and Gawker to disclose at the beginning of their accounts that they were not actually at the dinner and all information is based on second-hand accounts? Maybe if they are feeling extra generous admit that they have a vendetta and personal bias against Uber because the CEO made a reference to "boobs" in an interview? Something that most people in the real world, I have to tell you, probably don't actually care about.
- mattmanser 12y agoUh, news stories are based on accounts. Are you saying every news story should start "I wasn't there, but a reliable source told me'? Because that would get tiresome very quickly.
- dkrich 12y agoUh, no, it was a rhetorical question. I'm saying that if we want to make some special case that the author must disclose that she knows the subject of her article before describing what she witnessed first-hand, then we should maybe recognize the fact that all other people reporting on this topic with so much certainty as to what happened weren't actually there. If you read pretty much any Pando article you will find that all citations to past articles seemingly supporting the main thesis are actually other poorly-researched stories written by other Pando authors. After all, how reliable is a source who is a writer for BuzzFeed? Here's one example of sensationalist headlines masquerading as journalism from a cursory scan of the front page (yes, he is citing a BuzzFeed article that is apparently citing an internal memo that despite some crafty sensationalist language, is doing nothing more than outlining plans to hire an internal research department). Is this somebody who has a less-biased view of the situation that the HuffPo author? http://pando.com/news/uber-sought-to-hire-opposition-researcher-to-weaponize-facts/ http://pando.com/news/uber-sought-to-hire-opposition-researc...
- mattmanser 12y agoNicole Campbell is not a journalist, so yes, very different standards apply to her when she is given a voice in a newspaper. She has no career to lose and so must be far more open about her relationship. It's bizarre that HuffPo thought it was even appropriate to publish the story given that relationship, in traditional newspapers you would expect it to appear in the letters section not as an article.
- lotsofmangos 12y agoMy experience of cabbies has been pretty good. Then again, I usually make sure that I have cash in my wallet to pay for them before embarking or ask them to find a cashpoint on the way. If they have working card machines, they often lose signal or are being slow and expense departments are perfectly capable of dealing with cabbie receipts.