Taking on my Company: My Response
A “controversy” has been created over whether I should be publicly beating up Knight Ridder for its decision to break old Web links.
Read it. And may I suggest e-mailing him your support and understanding. What’s happened I feel is wrong to say the least. I can say that much even if I am biased on the matter.
Note I took down my previous post. I don’t want mud slinging – that’s entirely not the idea. I’m hoping for discourse. If I can put it back up in some manner that’s reasonable – I will. Admittidly I’m too close to the matter. I admit I have conflicts of interest right up front. I work for the same company as Dan. In any case – like Dan – I gotta get back to work and life.
Thanks for asking the question. Your post where you summarized my motives as revenge were not polite, to put it mildly. You slung some pretty heavy mud there Karl, and it was undue. We were actually relieved to end the free-work relationship with Knight Ridder. No such conflict existed.
It really bothered me posting it. I know you characterized it as whining in the thread, but I really don’t know how to see it. I can’t know how you felt about the matter.
What I do know is Dan is someone with more then enough integrity to go around. Tons of it. So it seemed real off base. Then the Poynter conversation concentrated on the technology and had little to do with Dan.
I will edit my piece to make it less accusitory though. You’re right. It’s not civil as they should be. Your motivations, after the vicious attacks of the last few months, are now very unclear to me – but like me – you should follow the Golden Rule and put yourself in my shoes.
In the post I didn’t even directly say that was what I think is going on – but I did suggest it was a possibility.
A note here…. I’ve even refrained from using your name or linking to your piece in that post so they don’t get indexed and cached by Google and picked up by DayPop and others. Otherwise what you consider as an attack would have been published all over the place.
How civil is that?
Simply put, you’re responsible for what you say, not me. I’m satisfied that I covered all the bases. Do what makes sense for you. I acknowledged your post on Scripting News, without linking to it. Knight Ridder, the company you’re defending, is all over the map on this one. I wouldl suggest that in the next round, you guys start talking with each other before you shoot from the hip.
Dave, by acknowledging Karl’s post without pointing to it, you’re violating the very principles of Captital J journalism – not providing the source so that people can double-check your interpretation of that source.
My interpretation of the reason that you’re doing this is because you don’t want to give Karl any buzz.
If you disagree with this viewpoint, remember that my posting it is no different than your posted interpretation of KR’s reasons for going to a new format. They’re both based on our own personal take on the whole situation.
As Karl says, KRs this was a business decision and I’m going to call out “Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!”. It was the company’s decision to go this route – a non-news thing other than “It happened, here’s what you get now, for better or worse. Send in your opinions.”
Personally, I thought Dan handled this masterfully. He has my respect as a Journalist.
I wish I wasn’t going offline right now, because this is something I would like to get into in more depth than in Karl’s comments. However, this is also something that will continue to be around when I go back online. And most likely continued by those more eloquent than myself.
Sorry. “As Karl says, KR made a business decision and I’m not going to call out ‘Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!”
Naw Shelley – I don’t think I want him to point to it. But thanks anyway. I’m not pointing to him either 🙂 I think by pointing to each other – it will force us into more defensive positions. Actually hurt the discussion.
The fact that we are actually having a rather frank discussion here is enough for me.
Thanks though 🙂
Actually, this goes beyond your posts Karl. This is the issue needing discussion. If webloggers want to set themselves up as Journalists, they have certain responsibilities – including providing sources for checking.
Personally, I think weblogging is something different, unique, still being explored (as Jonathon wrote eloquently, me less so). Weblogging is not something worse than, equal to, or better than Capital J Journalism.
And boy did I go off topic.
Will email Dan with my support.
I realize that Shelley. But if I blow up on DayPop I may have to take this thing down. I wrote my piece in such a way that I even hope it doesn’t get indexed on Google. My intent is not to harm anyone’s reputations.
It’s not that I don’t strongly feel about the way I do. Obviously I do. It’s just that I’m doing this more for discourse then for anything else.
So can we not make this an example case? Pretty please?
One thing to Dave however – I do not speak for the company here.
Maybe I should not weblog after all if what I say here get’s lumped in as company speak.
I linked to your original post, so I guess I’ll have to rewrite that. My point was that I wouldn’t trust a journalist writing about his own employer anyway (unless it’s for a stike paper :-). For example, public broadcasters here in Germany do not exempt themselves from reporting on broadcasting issues, and it _always_ comes across as self-serving.
Apologies for taking my post down. You certainly had a great point.
Read around on his site today though and the related Steve Outing thread for more context on the conversation.
It sucks how Dan took a hit over all this.