Why Hasn't The Washington Post Admitted That It Totally Screwed Up Its 'Free Super WiFi' Report?

from the this-is-getting-silly dept

Sometimes the press screws up. Anyone can screw up. The best thing to do is to admit that you screwed up, apologize, and make it right. At times, we've had to do that, sometimes even admitting we were just plain wrong. It happens. You apologize, you make things right, and you move on. However, for some people, that's hard, and apparently the Washington Post is included in that bunch. Earlier this week, we did a big debunking on the WaPo's incredibly misleading story about the FCC and "super WiFi." The story was on the front page of the Washington Post, suggesting (incorrectly) that there was a "new" proposal from the FCC to blanket the US in free WiFi.

The truth was that there was nothing of the sort. There was a minor step in a decade-long fight over putting some old TV spectrum to better use. It wasn't new. It wasn't anything important. And it had little to nothing to do with blanketing the US in free WiFi -- especially free WiFi supplied by the FCC (as the Post article implied, and which many people took to be true). A few others got on the debunking train as well, and one of the earlier thorough debunkings came from Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin, who pointed out that it was just bad journalism at work.

While some of the others who picked up on the original story have since admitted they were mistaken, Brodkin has a new article pointing out that the original story won't die. He was contacted to go on Current TV about it until he explained that there was no story. But the really awful part is that the Washington Post itself and reporter Cecilia Kang (who normally does good work, so this still has me baffled) still have not corrected their original piece. Instead, Kang put up a weak follow up piece that added five "things to know" about the plan. The "five things" are all accurate, but they were sort of core to the original story and weren't in there. The whole point is that the original story is incredibly misleading, and the proper thing to do was to put a giant correction notice on it, pointing out that they screwed up the original story. It was misleading to the extreme, and at points, implied things that were simply incorrect.

Yes, it's embarrassing to admit you were wrong, but it's more embarrassing to let a wrong story live on. As Brodkin notes, because the original story is still out there and uncorrected, the false story lives on in many places. He also notes that the Washington Post is standing by the story, which makes no sense:

I ended up talking to the Post reporter on the phone and e-mailing with the Post's ombudsman. The ombudsman told me that the FCC confirmed to the Post that the "free Wi-Fi" story was correct, which is odd, because I also talked to people at the FCC who said the exact opposite. Similarly, a TechCrunch reporter wrote that "my contact at the FCC told me that there was no such plan" as the one reported by the Post.

The Post reporter was genuinely nice and seemed eager to correct the record, but the execution was lacking. She followed up with a more realistic piece titled "Five things to know about 'free' public Wi-Fi." It explains some of the realities of the situation, such as the fact that the FCC won't be building any networks itself and that whatever networks are built won't necessarily be used to provide free Internet access.

The Post's follow-up story was all well and good, but the original story was never corrected or retracted. In addition to getting the front-page treatment, the initial Post story was coupled with a cringe-inducing video titled "FCC offers path to free Internet access." A host begins the spot by asking, "What if Wi-Fi didn't come from a router in your living room but instead from powerful TV antennas? And better yet, what if you didn't have to pay for it? That possibility could become a reality across the US thanks to a new proposal by the Federal Communications Commission." (Have I made it clear that the proposal is not new and never required "free access," either?)

And people wonder why folks have trouble "trusting" the press these days?

Filed Under: cecilia kang, fcc, journalism, reporting, spectrum, super wifi, white spaces

Washington Post Fails To Ask NBC's Rick Cotton Any Tough Questions

from the ah,-the-press dept

Dark Helmet was the first of a few of you to send over this interview by the Washington Post's Cecilia Kang of NBC's Rick Cotton. Cotton, of course, is one of our favorite quote machines. He's the guy who famously claimed that movie downloading was hurting corn farmers of America, because people wouldn't buy popcorn at movies any more (a factually ridiculous statement, considering that (1) box office sales keep going up (2) corn is one of the most heavily subsidized markets and continues to grow and (3) people watching movies at home still eat popcorn). He also considered it a victory, that his efforts made it more difficult for legitimate viewers to watch the Olympics. Kang, by the way, has actually been pretty good in interviews when it comes to telco/broadband stories, so I had high hopes that she would at least ask a couple of tough questions.

Instead... she basically accepts his (extremely faulty) premise that all copyright infringement is evil and must be stopped at all costs, talking about how ACTA is "evidence of progress," with a brief aside that "some public interest groups don't like" ACTA. But, then we get to the questions, which are basically "please give us all your talking points, and I won't challenge you on a single one of them." It kicks off with this one:

How do you think Washington needs to approach such a big problem?

But, uh, is it really a problem? I mean, this interview takes place just a week or so after the GAO pointed out that the claims of losses from folks like Rick Cotton are basically made up and that there's little evidence to support them. The next question suggests the entire problem is with everyone else on the internet and not, say, NBC's failure to adapt its business model:

What would be a wake-up call for those users to make them change their behavior?

Why not ask when will NBC wake up and fix its business model?

From there, the interview veers into Cotton's favorite talking point: that ISPs should be forced to police the interwebs, because his company is too incompetent to do so itself. None of the questions really challenge the basic premise of what he's saying. They only weakly push back, questioning why ISPs would want to do that. The only question that touches on pushback is when she notes that deep packet inspection could be misused, which Cotton brushes off.

But, really, the final question is the kicker. It's sort of the opposite of the "and when did you stop beating your wife" variety, in that it sets up a totally false premise as a layup for Cotton:

Are you saying the opponents of the Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement aren't offering solutions?

To which Cotton slams the ball home by lying:

Yes. They are about just saying no. No is the only answer. That is not only not constructive, I think it is actively destructive. What strikes me is that everyone marvels at technology of a search engine that can go out and identify 10 million returns in 0.002 of a second. But they say that that same technology has nothing to contribute or can only be a destructive force.

But, of course, none of that is true, and you would think that a reporter for the Washington Post would be armed with the facts to question such blatantly wrong talking points. Opponents of ACTA have detailed over and over again the serious problems of what's in it. They've talked about the faulty premise that Kang and Cotton keep up through the whole interview that infringement is a legal problem that requires getting the gov't to prop up NBC, rather than a business model problem of NBC refusing to adapt to a changing market.

Opponents of ACTA offer up all sorts of solutions: starting with NBC no longer running to the government demanding protection, but instead updating its business model and focusing on offering more products that its customers actually want. This was an incredibly disappointing interview. I would have expected better.

Filed Under: cecilia kang, copyright, rick cotton
Companies: nbc universal