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Given the article, it sounds like he was baited into giving a sound bite that could be taken out of context, by a reporter at an off the record dinner. Given th

Given the article, it sounds like he was baited into giving a sound bite that could be taken out of context, by a reporter at an off the record dinner. Given the full context, it sounds like they were discussing how a company COULD deal with reporters who write biased attack pieces (in this context it sounds like the reporter in question wrote an attack piece and didn't disclose a conflict of interest). That might actually make for an interesting dinner conversation. What could a company do to protect itself from attack pieces written as actual journalism. It's bias masquerading as fact. A possible solution to that might be to investigate that bias and expose it (if someone writes an article for a company who has a major investor also invested in a competitor - maybe the public SHOULD know that, even if it's not disclosed because the writer isn't really a journalist but is pretending to be one on a blog). In fact, that shouldn't be too contentious of a position. The problem was that 1) the quote makes it seem like the Uber Exec somehow advocated actually doing that (it sounds like he didn't), and 2) It requires knowing the context (that it's with regards to unethical bloggers who write biased attack pieces because of a conflict of interest they don't mention and not applied to ALL journalists). It's a complex point that requires context. The buzzfeed writer intentionally misrepresented that for clicks, but that's what buzzfeed does.

lotsofmangos 12y ago
If it takes context to know what was said and you are saying that we do not know the context, how on earth are you making the claim that you know it was intentionally misrepresented, or in fact misrepresented at all? For one thing, the response from Uber has not given the indication that this story was misrepresented, but rather has reinforced its reliability: --- "I wanted to apologize to you directly — I am sorry. I was at an event and was venting, but what I said was never intended to describe actions that would ever be undertaken by me or my company toward you or anyone else. I was definitively wrong and I feel terrible about any distress I have caused you. Again, I am sorry." --- "The remarks attributed to me at a private dinner — borne out of frustration during an informal debate over what I feel is sensationalistic media coverage of the company I am proud to work for — do not reflect my actual views and have no relation to the company’s views or approach. They were wrong no matter the circumstance and I regret them." --- There is no indication there that the reporting was false and those quotes are direct from Emil.
- viscanti 12y ago
  It takes context to know that 1) It was an off the record event and 2) that previous attack pieces were levied at his company and a reporter baited him into giving quotes that would sound incendiary without any of the context (i.e. answering the hypothetical question "how could a company stop biased attack articles). The writer neither acknowledges his own conflict of interest nor does he give any indication that it's an answer to a hypothetical question. The real answer is that the uber exec isn't going to do anything about the attack pieces because they haven't done anything about them.

lotsofmangos 12y ago

If it takes context to know what was said and you are saying that we do not know the context, how on earth are you making the claim that you know it was intentionally misrepresented, or in fact misrepresented at all? For one thing, the response from Uber has not given the indication that this story was misrepresented, but rather has reinforced its reliability: --- "I wanted to apologize to you directly — I am sorry. I was at an event and was venting, but what I said was never intended to describe actions that would ever be undertaken by me or my company toward you or anyone else. I was definitively wrong and I feel terrible about any distress I have caused you. Again, I am sorry." --- "The remarks attributed to me at a private dinner — borne out of frustration during an informal debate over what I feel is sensationalistic media coverage of the company I am proud to work for — do not reflect my actual views and have no relation to the company’s views or approach. They were wrong no matter the circumstance and I regret them." --- There is no indication there that the reporting was false and those quotes are direct from Emil.

viscanti 12y ago
It takes context to know that 1) It was an off the record event and 2) that previous attack pieces were levied at his company and a reporter baited him into giving quotes that would sound incendiary without any of the context (i.e. answering the hypothetical question "how could a company stop biased attack articles). The writer neither acknowledges his own conflict of interest nor does he give any indication that it's an answer to a hypothetical question. The real answer is that the uber exec isn't going to do anything about the attack pieces because they haven't done anything about them.