NYTimes Shocked That People Write Blogs To Respond To Press Inaccuracies

from the they're-just-discovering-this-now? dept

DV Henkel-Wallace writes "The New York Times has an article expressing surprise that people who aren't happy about articles blog about it, including full disclosure of interview transcripts and the like. As an article, that alone may not be so interesting. But although they tried to keep article somewhat neutral, it still reflects some shock that the gatekeepers don't get to "keep the gate" as it were. The best quote:
"A newspaper reporter's original article is likely to disappear from the free Web site after a few days and become inaccessible unless purchased from the newspaper's archives, while the blogger's version of events remains available forever."
Somehow the Times failed to point out that the one-week limitation is in no way unfair: they
choose to take their content offline!"
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Bob, 3 Jan 2006 @ 10:11am

    Correct

    It's a good idea, I completely agree with fact-checking, and bloggers' right to do it. How long a site wants to hold on to its content is it's own business, be it a blogger's comments or a news site's article.

    I see no problem with it, although I would imagine only news sites that are intentionally dishonest or have an intent to mislead, or twist the truth, will not like it much.

    If a news service is honest and has nothing to hide, why should they mind? They shouldn't. The content that 'hangs around' on a bloggers site can be a credit to the news service, a reminder of its integrity over time.

    Of course it can also remind us of untrustworthy behavior, but that is as it should be, it goes without saying that you should expect everything you do on the net to be recorded, the good and bad. You can't erase with a magic wand your past misdeeds, you have to own up to them, learn, and live with them. A news site should get no preferential exception, as the rest of us don't.

    If a news site wants to charge for archived content, instead of making their viewpoint publicly accessible in the midst of a debate, then that's their business.. and their loss.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Scott Duffy, 3 Jan 2006 @ 11:08am

    Who has bias?

    Having read the NYTimes article, I did not detect any bias from the author one way or another. The author was simply stating, "Several journalists are discovering that their interview subjects like to talk back on their own web sites. Here are a few examples."

    Your inaccurate title and description looks like a case of an Internet web site misrepresenting what the mainstream media is saying. How ironic!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.