Hey Elon Musk, Let's Talk About The Media

from the bad-press-happens,-attacking-the-media-doesn't-help dept

Hey Elon,

Let's start this off by noting I'm generally a big fan of what you've done over the years with your various companies (Zip2 always seemed a bit silly, but, you know, since then...). Just recently I got a tour of the Tesla factory and I felt like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, even if I didn't get to own the factory when it was over. I've also been impressed by the way you decide to seriously "just get it done" when you see something that should be done. I mean, half the world seemed to think your idea for the Boring Company was actually a joke and yet a year and a half later, you've got a freaking tunnel under LA (in contrast, the 2nd Avenue Subway in NY was proposed in 1919 and just opened partially last year). So, like, I take it seriously when you say you've got a new project underway.

And, yesterday you went on a bit of a Twitter rant about the media and said that you were going to start a media truth rating site called Pravda (clever!). And, as with the Boring Company, I believe you'll do it. I mean, you actually did incorporate Pravda Corp. last fall. So, you've got that going for you.

On top of that, I even think you have a general point about how bad the mainstream media is. We've been at this for over 20 years, and some of our most successful stories have been calling out really bad reporting by big publications. It's good to keep them honest.

That said, I have some pretty serious concerns about this whole setup and believe you've misdiagnosed the problem. Let's start with your tweet that suggests the reason reporters get stories wrong is because they're incentivized by clicks and ad dollars:

I'm curious if you could point to any actual example of that happening in practice today for a mainstream publication? I know that Gawker -- who your former colleague Peter Thiel killed off -- used to pay writers a bonus based on clicks, but I can't think of any other news organization that still does that. It's a nice story that people outside the media like to claim, but actual journalists know is not actually the case. Hell, here at Techdirt, I've never actually told any of our writers how much traffic their stories get, because I don't want them thinking about clicks at all. I want them to write the best stories they can write, and then they can let me focus on how to monetize good content and a good insightful community, rather than just going for scale and clicks.

And, as for the whole "fossil fuel companies as advertisers" bit, it may be true that there are some publishers out there who do worry about offending their advertisers, but I've almost never seen that information conveyed to the journalists themselves, and in the rare cases where that does happen, lots of journalists would (and do) quit rather than feel that their reporting was compromised by advertisers. So, blaming "clicks" and "advertisers" for more sensational stories you don't like is -- dare I say it -- "fake news" (in the parlance of our times, even if that's a dumb and meaningless phrase). It's good to correct the record when the press gets something wrong, but imputing incorrect motives to the reason for the coverage has serious consequences that you really might want to think about.

The reason Tesla gets lots of coverage, both good and bad, is because it's a fucking fascinating company. You've built (1) the first successful new American car company in like a century and (2) done it with an important advancement in technology (electric cars) that have failed in the past. It's a fascinating story. And, as tech comms guy Aaron Zamost pointed out years ago, there's a predictable cycle of "Silicon Valley Time" in how all successful companies tend to get covered -- for good or for bad. For what it's worth, it looks like you're somewhere in the 9 to 10 o'clock hour on Zamost's clock (which actually means you're not that far off from hitting 12 o'clock and getting to start the cycle again.)

But, let's get back to this whole Pravda (again, clever name!) idea (or is it called "You're Right!" now?). I know it feels like you're striking back against some recent bad media coverage. But, honestly, you're really just serving to call more attention to some of the negative stories about Tesla out there right now (including an eye-opening story from the Center for Investigative Reporting, a non-profit not exactly known for clickbait or making decisions based on its non-existent advertisers). Of course, you've done this before as well. I wrote about it five years ago, when another instance of you lashing out at the media only seemed to call more attention to those negative stories.

There's a term for that sort of thing that maybe you haven't heard about.

But, there is a larger, more important issue here that should be discussed. I know you've dismissed a few people who have suggested your anti-media rant does more harm than good, but you might want to rethink that stance. Yes, the media makes mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes are pretty serious. And, yes, some media organization are just... terrible. But painting the entire media industry with a broad brush, at the same time that many other powerful institutions who don't want to be held accountable (*cough* *cough*) are doing the same thing, doesn't help make the media better or more credible. It just empowers those who seek to discredit the actually good and necessary job of underpaid, overworked reporters who are actually breaking important stories, holding the powerful accountable and speaking truth to power.

Indeed, if you've actually read this far (and I know that's unlikely, but humor me), I would recommend seriously considering the four questions that Alexios Mantzarlis at the Poynter Institute (again, a non-profit known for supporting serious, thoughtful journalism) had for you about this plan -- which really lays out all the ways in which your plan can go wrong. Crowdsourcing has lots of benefits. But crowdsourcing "truth" tends to turn into a popularity contest of narratives. And, as we've seen, sometimes that leads to some pretty fucked up outcomes.

And you don't need to encourage that kind of thing just because a few journalists pissed you off. You're crazy rich and super powerful. The journalists you are maligning tend to be neither of those things. And your plan looks likely to make things not just worse for them, but to make their jobs in actually bringing about truth that much more difficult.

I might not know how to build a cool factory like the Tesla factory or be able to launch my sports cars into space, but I do know something about the media world. And your little tirade and plans to "fix" things, are based on faulty assumptions and will make a difficult situation for the media much worse -- doing pretty serious damage to the good work that much of the media actually does. I have no problem with calling out bad reporting, weak fact checking, silly assumptions and the like. You've got a powerful soapbox and you should use it accordingly. But, tarring and feathering the entire media and providing tools for everyone else to do the same is going to lead to really bad outcomes.

So, please, focus on continuing to do the impossible with your various companies rather than attacking the media. The Silicon Valley clock will keep ticking, and it'll be 12 o'clock before you know it. Hopefully, by then, there may even be some Teslas that those of us working in media can actually afford.

Thanks,

Mike

Filed Under: credibility, elon musk, fact checking, journalism, media, trust
Companies: pravda

Donald Trump's Son & Campaign Manager Both Tweet Obviously Fake Story

from the not-very-credible dept

It's no secret that there's been a huge number of totally fake news websites popping up in the past few years. Apparently, it's a fun and profitable venture. While some of the fake news sites come up with generic names, like National Report, Hot Global, The Valley Report and Associated Media Coverage, some of the most successful fake news sites just make use of the big well-known broadcaster websites... and just get a .co domain: using nbc.com.co or abcnews.com.co. Some of the hoax stories are really well done -- and, yes, even we've been fooled, though in our defense, the fake story we fell for... was so believable it became true just months later. But, of course, we're just a bunch of random bloggers, not a Presidential campaign.

The Trump campaign, on the other hand, should know better. Amusingly, of course, this week we've talked about the Trump campaign's willingness to fall for hoaxes, but they seemed to take it up a notch this week. I first noticed it when I saw Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway tweet an obviously fake story, claiming that an anti-Trump protestor was really paid by the Clinton campaign. You can even see the URL there, showing that it's "abcnews.com.co" and not the actual ABC news website (even if Conway does tag the real ABC as if they wrote the article). And, as I was writing up this story, I saw that The Hill notes that Donald Trump's son, Eric Trump, tweeted the same fake story: Here's the thing, though. If you actually look at the story, it's so obviously fake. I mean, first off, just the claim that a protestor got $3500 to protest a Trump rally? I mean, even Donald Trump himself only paid his fake supporters $50 to cheer at his campaign announcement. Yes, the Clinton campaign has raised a lot more money than the Trump campaign, but $3500 a protestor? I mean, that's pretty obviously a ridiculous number.

And the article itself just gets more and more ridiculous the more you read. Whoever wrote this is clearly not even trying to fool people. I mean, just read this paragraph about how the guy knows it's Hillary's campaign that "paid" because the people who contacted him used AOL:

“As for who these people were affiliated with that interviewed me, my guess would be Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Horner said. “The actual check I received after I was done with the job was from a group called ‘Women Are The Future’. After I was hired, they told me if anyone asked any questions about who I was with or communicated with me in any way, I should start talking about how great Bernie Sanders is.” Horner continued, “It was mostly women in their 60’s at the interview that I went to. Plus, all the people that I communicated with had an AOL email address. No one still has an AOL email address except people that would vote for Hillary Clinton.”

Or, how about the made-up Trump supporter in the article saying it was obviously a fake protestor because they shouted facts, or how "the best we could do was just yell and punch 'em."

“I knew those weren’t real protesters, they were too organized and smart,” said 59-year-old Tom Downey, a Trump supporter who attended the rally in Fountain Hills. “I knew there was something up when they started shouting all these facts and nonsense like that. The best we could do was just yell and punch em’ and stuff.” Downey continued

Yeah, sure. These fit the "stereotypes" but in such an exaggerated way that it's obviously false.

And then the article actually sorta becomes self-aware, with a pretty big wink to anyone who actually read it that it's false:

David Mikkelson, founder of Snopes.com, a website known for its biased opinions and inaccurate information they write about stories on the internet in order to generate advertising revenue, told ABC News that he approves of what a story like this is accomplishing.

“You have to understand that when a story like this goes viral, and we spend a minute or two debunking it, we make lots of money. Stories like this have helped put my children through college, buy a new car, a home and even get the Silverback gorilla my wife Barbara always wanted since she was a child,” Mikkleson said. “We claim ‘to provide evidence for such debunkings and confirmation as well‘, but that’s just ridiculous. Do you know how much time that would take? Instead, we just copy and paste parts of the original article into ours, write a couple sentences, and that’s it. I just want to be clear, our website does zero journalism or anything creative, and I’m only telling you this for legal reasons...."

That one goes on for a while having the fake Snopes person going on and on about fake news sites, totally unrelated to the subject of this "story." So, uh, yeah. It's pretty clear that either Trump's son and campaign manager read the story and are so completely clueless that they still thought it was real, or they were so excited by what the headline claimed that they just glided right past the ridiculous dollar amount and assumed it must be true. Yes, people get fooled by fake news stories all the time. But having an actual Presidential campaign get fooled by one is... well... bad.

Filed Under: credibility, donald trump, eric trump, fake news, kellyanne conway

John Steele's Claims About Alan Cooper Contradicted By History

from the damn-that-historical-record dept

Earlier this week, we wrote about John Steele's attempt at the character assassination of Alan Cooper, his former home caretaker who accused Steele of forging his name on various documents concerning shell companies associated with Prenda, the law firm Steele worked for. As part of that filing, Steele tried to suggest that Cooper was a willing participant, and that Steele was merely helping his "friend" get introduced into the porn copyright trolling business. As we noted, Steele's story directly contradicts Cooper's story, which certainly suggests that one of them is not telling the truth in court. That's generally a bad idea. As more people look into Steele's claims, they don't seem to hold up under scrutiny, suggesting that if one of the two has a credibility problem, it's probably Steele.

First, the John Steele affidavit in that case, which the character assassination filing cited repeatedly, has finally been filed. Oddly, the affidavit is signed and notarized three days after the filing by Steven Goodhue which quotes it. Not sure how that time twist works, where you file a document quoting another document three days before it's been written, but, hey anything's possible.

But in those two documents, Steele lays out a clear timeline for his interactions with Alan Cooper and the porn copyright trolling business. In the Goodhue filing, it states clearly:

Steele described the litigation and his business to Cooper. At some point in early 2011, Steele and Cooper discussed how a friend of Steele’s was exploring opportunities relating to purchasing and marketing adult content. Cooper expressed interest in learning more about these opportunities and Steele offered to help him learn more.

Later in the filing, they say that while Steele and Cooper discussed setting up Cooper with a shell company, nothing happened there. Instead, Steele claims that the first time he actually involved Cooper with his porn copyright trolling efforts was even later in 2011, when he "offered to introduce Cooper to Mark Lutz."

In Steele's declaration, he suggests that he made the intro and then had little knowledge of what happened after that.

My understanding is that Alan took me up on the offer and participated in a limited number of transactions in 2011 with Mr. Lutz's companies. I am not aware of any post-2011 transaction in which Alan participated.

Okay, so we have a timeline and a suggestion of limited knowledge. The timeline states that they didn't even discuss these ideas until 2011 and all that John Steele did was introduce Cooper to Lutz and that's it.

So, here's where Steele's story falls apart. As we'd discussed in an earlier case, some GoDaddy records were filed which show John Steele registering domains in Alan Cooper's name in 2010. Ruh roh. Specifically, they show the email address "johnlsteele@gmail.com" registering a variety of domain names in Alan Cooper's name. And, in case you're wondering, there's no doubt that's Steele's email address (rather than, say, Cooper pretending to be Steele) because that same email address was used to register Prenda's website. And there's plenty of evidence that it was actually Steele doing this beyond the email address. The physical address used is an address in Arizona which is the home address of John Steele's sister, Jayme, namely 4532 East Villa Theresa Drive, Phoneix, AZ 85032. And the GoDaddy documents show that the address was originally the address of Prenda's office in Chicago. And the GoDaddy support logs show that someone named John called because he was having trouble logging into the account and made them send the info to johnlsteele@gmail.com.

Oh, and you might recall that in the case before Judge Wright, opposing lawyer Morgan Pietz had filed a document about yet another Prenda shell company called VPR Internationale:

Further, a residential address in Phoenix apparently co-occupied by Anthony Saltmarsh and Jayme Steele has also been linked to several Prenda straw men and sham entities, including Alan Cooper.... Prenda previously represented VPR Internationale in various copyright infringement suits.... According to the Nevada Secretary of State, all officer positions at VPR Inc. are held by “Alan Cooper,” and the address given for Mr. Cooper in each instance is 4532 East Villa Theresa Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032.... Similarly, an Internet search of that same address revealed what appears to be an archived WHOIS record for an Internet domain name registration of which lists “Alan Cooper” as the registrant, technical contact, and administrative contact, but using johnlsteele@gmail.com as the email address of record, and 4532 East Villa Theresa Drive, Phoneix, AZ 85032 as the mailing address of record. Exhbit T. According to public database searches on Anthony Saltmarsh and Jayme Steele, both of them resided at 4532 East Villa Theresa Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032.

Indeed, as some have been pointing out on Twitter, Nevada still has a listing for VPR showing "Alan Cooper" in all executive roles, using Jayme Steele's address... and that was set up in 2010.

So, Steele claims he and Cooper talked about this stuff in 2011 and the extent of Steele's help was an intro to Mark Lutz to help out with AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13, but the paper trail shows Steele using Cooper's name to set up a number of other websites and companies in 2010, well before he claimed to have even discussed Cooper working "in the business." Ooops.

Yes, it's looking like Steele has the credibility problem here, rather than Cooper.

Oh, and perhaps someone more familiar with how the 5th amendment works can fill in the details here, but the various points made by Steele in this particular case appear to be the identical issues to which Steele pleaded the 5th in front of Judge Wright in the Central District of California. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to plead the 5th in one place, and then respond to the same questions elsewhere. I would imagine that might come back to bite Steele as well. In the meantime, however, we get to watch him keep digging as he really does seem to think he can talk his way out of things, despite the piles upon piles of evidence that appears to contradict what he's saying.

Filed Under: alan cooper, credibility, history, john steele, morgan pietz, otis wright, steven goodhue
Companies: prenda, prenda law

WikiLeaks Reveals Aaron Swartz May Have Been A Source: Wise Move?

from the question-of-trust dept

WikiLeaks currently finds itself in a difficult position. Funds are trickling in because of a questionable financial blockade against it, and Julian Assange is stuck in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. So it's understandable that it should want to take every opportunity to remind people that it is still around and keen to continue publishing highly-sensitive documents in a confidential fashion. But I do wonder if this series of tweets disclosing that Aaron Swartz was involved with WikiLeaks is the best way of doing that:

Due to the investigation into the Secret Service involvement with #AaronSwartz we have decided to disclose the following facts (1-3)

1. Aaron Swartz assisted WikiLeaks #aaronswartz (1/3)

2. Aaron Swartz was in communication with Julian Assange, including during 2010 and 2011

3. We have strong reasons to believe, but cannot prove, that Aaron Swartz was a WikiLeaks source. #aaronswartz

There are a number of issues here. First, WikiLeaks is revealing the name of one of its sources -- surely something it should never do under any circumstances if it wants to retain the confidence of future whistleblowers. Worse, it's not even sure Aaron Swartz was a contributor, but is making the claim anyway. That matters because it may encourage the US authorities to start investigating others in his circle as possible WikiLeaks contributors. At best, that could be awkward for them, and at worst, extremely dangerous given what has happened to the alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning.

It's hard to see what WikiLeaks thought it would gain from making these statements, other than some quick publicity, perhaps. But that seems a very transient gain in the face of the long-term dangers it may have exposed others to. Moreover, those four tweets may also have compromised its credibility with potential sources, who must now be asking themselves whether WikiLeaks can really be trusted again.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: aaron swartz, anonymity, credibility, source, wikileaks

Just How Dumb Is It For CBS To Block CNET From Giving Dish An Award?

from the count-the-ways dept

As you may or may not recall, last year, pretty much all the TV networks sued Dish Networks over a new feature it had launched, PrimeTime Any Time (PTAT), with its Autohopper technology on its DVRs. PTAT is where it would automatically record all the major networks' prime time programming and hold onto it for a bit. Autohopper would then automatically skip over the commercials. It's important to recognize that these features, on their own, have been considered legal. VCRs had auto commercial skip ages ago and DVR technology (time shifting) has been called fair use plenty of times. Given that, the lawsuits aren't going well so far.

But, in a moment of pure stupidity, some very short-sighted suits at CBS made a really silly decision. As you may or may not have heard, CES -- the massive consumer electronics show -- has been going on all this week in Las Vegas. I just got back from there myself. At the show, Dish announced another merging of some of its products, adding its Slingbox (who they bought years back) to the same basic setup. Slingbox, of course, is for "place shifting" what the DVR is for "time shifting." You hook it up to your TV and it lets you access what's playing on your TV via the internet (so, via your computer, phone or tablet). It's hardly surprising that this is where Dish was heading.

And... the early reviews and buzz were definitely strong. For example, CNET wrote a glowing review in which executive editor David Carnoy suggested it may be the best DVR out there these days. The CNET crew liked the thing so much that they nominated it for their "Best of CES" award. And... then the suits at CNET parent company CBS noticed. And suddenly they told CNET that it had to remove the Dish Hopper with Sling from consideration for the Best of CES award and that it was no longer allowed to review any Dish products. CNET editors appended the following note to their review:

Editors' note: The Dish Hopper with Sling was removed from consideration for the Best of CES 2013 awards due to active litigation involving our parent company CBS Corp. We will no longer be reviewing products manufactured by companies with which we are in litigation with respect to such product.

This is monumentally stupid, for a variety of reasons. Let's see how many we can come up with.

1. Hello Streisand Effect. There were approximately one gazillion articles this week about products coming out of CES, and the place was wall to wall with journalists -- probably half of whom were coming up with their own "best of" lists. Most people were completely saturated with CES stories and would barely glance at such a story. Except... now, tons of people are suddenly finding out about this awesome Dish DVR, the Hopper with Slingbox. In fact, they're hearing that the damn thing is so good that CBS is trying to block any news of it from getting out. Talking about increasing the awareness... I have no clue whatsoever what product CNET -- or any other publication -- awarded "best of CES" to. But I sure as hell am well aware of Dish's new DVR.
2. Goodbye to the wall that separates the suits from the journalists at CBS/CNET. CBS execs have just confirmed that they don't want their journalists and reviewers to cover things based on the merits, but rather on what it means for their corporate masters.
3. Hello slippery slope. Is it really that hard to see where this heads next? Is CNET still allowed to report on the lawsuit if CBS loses? If they can't talk about the products, what about the legal issues themselves?
4. Goodbye journalists with credibility. Frankly, CNET has always had some of the strongest tech reporters in the business. For many years I've considered it one of the top tech news sites out there. I have tremendous respect for many of the reporters there. But, now I have to wonder how much the suits are interfering with their ability to report things accurately.
5. Goodbye to principled journalists who want to work for CBS. If I'm a journalist at CNET right now, I'd be seriously considering quitting in protest. This move seriously harms the brand and reputation of the site, and this is the kind of thing that journalists should stand up against. Having the suits interfere with what they can write about is generally seen as a massive offense to journalists. I would bet this leads to some of the best, most principled CNET reporters jumping ship to elsewhere.
6. Good luck to CNET hiring new journalists. Who wants to jump into that toxic situation?

CBS's suits should have kept quiet and not interfered with the news side of the business. They had to know that this would backfire in a big bad way. And, if they didn't know that, they deserve to lose their jobs for being pretty clueless about things that matter.

Of course, they were probably thinking that Dish would likely use the reviews from CNET as evidence in the lawsuit, which very well may be true (and could still happen since the review did go out). But it's not hard to get around that, since the legal impact of a single review is near zilch. In the end, they didn't stifle the review, they made it more well known. They didn't do anything that helps them in their lawsuit. And they're left with an undoubtedly pissed off set of journalists who may now question how free they are to actually report the news.

Filed Under: ces, credibility, dvr, failures, hopper, journalism, lawsuits, reporting, slingbox, streisand effect
Companies: cbs, cnet, dish

Newspaper Proudly Announces It Will Only Cover Political Candidates Who Buy Ads

from the fair-and-balanced dept

There's been a lot of talk lately about claims that blogs are somehow posting stories without revealing if companies are paying for them, and even the FTC has announced plans to come out with guidelines to stop such behavior. But, of course, that assumes that it's only "blogs" that do this sort of thing, and not the mainstream press. And, to be honest, I can't think of a dumber thing for a blog to do, because if evidence of such a thing ever came out, it would destroy that blog's credibility. Yet, apparently, some in the newspaper business have no problems overtly and proudly advertising such things. A whole bunch of folks have submitted the story of a weekly newspaper in Key West Florida that alerted local political candidates that if they want coverage, they need to buy ads:

"As far as candidate forums and debates, we'll cover those when we can, but if candidates want their campaign covered, they have to pay to play.... I gotta pay the bills."

While a bit shocking in its honesty, it also should raise pretty serious questions about the credibility of the publication, which promises "fair reporting and fair representation." Though, given that it looks like the Conch Color website was designed in 1996 (yes, it has a clip art animated spinning globe -- and I'm almost surprised there's no animated "under construction" gifs), perhaps its credibility was already in question.

Filed Under: credibility, ethics, florida, journalism, key west, pay for play, politics
Companies: conch color

FTC Looks To Regulate Blogger Credibility

from the truthonline.com dept

The Federal Trade Commission is mulling over guidelines that would require bloggers to disclose when they're writing about products they've been given, sponsor's products, or are getting paid to write about a particular product. The FTC says the new rules are necessary because people are increasingly turning to blogs for product information, and their unregulated nature makes them ripe for abuse. But the things the FTC proposes, like mandated disclosure when a company has given a blogger a product, are things that most reasonable bloggers already do. Meanwhile, those who accept payment for posts -- as well as the companies doing the paying aren't likely to have much credibility with their audiences anyway. It's as if the FTC is trying to mandate credibility, and this raises a couple of interesting points. First, audiences generally seem pretty adept at rooting out when people are being paid to talk nice about a company or product, and there are plenty of examples of company's payola schemes getting found out and causing a backlash against them. Second, why do bloggers get singled out for special treatment? Plenty of old-media reporters get freebies tossed their way, but the FTC doesn't seem to think they deserve the same level of attention. That's not to say that newspapers are full of paid-placement articles or reports based on free products, but to think there's more scope for deception and advertiser influence on blogs than in any sort of print or other media is fallacious.

Filed Under: bloggers, consumer protection, credibility, ftc