> >It was the perfect, evil-music-industry story: A clandestine meeting >where chieftans from AOL Time Warner, RIAA, SDMI, Disney, Intel, and >even U.S. senators sat down to decide how to stop piracy, embrace >copy-protection technology, and generally screw over American >consumers. > >The Register got the tip from an anonymous source, and immediately >turned it into an article. It said: "The RIAA hosted a secret meeting >in Washington DC with the heads of major record labels and technology >companies, plus leaders of other trade bodies and even members of the >US senate." (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22087.html). > >It would have been a tremendous scoop for the website -- and would >have been vital information that the public deserved to know. > >The only problem: It was a hoax. The purported "meeting" was a >fabrication, spoof, and fantasy. It never took place. > >I don't typically criticize fellow journalists -- we all make >mistakes, we never have as much information as we'd like, and >deadlines are always too early -- but this article is beyond the >pale. Instead of checking to see whether the alleged participants were >still employed by their respective companies (some weren't), spending >two minutes on the phone asking RIAA whether it happened, or using the >barest glimmerings of journalistic sense, the Register credulously >reported fiction as fact. > >In a grudging retraction on Wednesday, the paper compounded its >problems by beginning its article with this line: "The trouble >with the Internet is that it's just too darn fast." >(http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/31/22138.html) > >No, the trouble has nothing to do with the Internet. It has everything >to do with shoddy journalism. Worse yet, the halfhearted retraction >still argued, pitifully and implausibly, that the quotes supplied by >Anonymous "may" still be accurate. An update to the original article, >instead of saying forthrightly we-were-hoaxed, instead allowed only >that "our source may not be all he or she claimed to be." Right. > >Caveat lector. > >-Declan > > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------- >POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list >You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. >Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ >To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html >This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ >-------------------------------------------------------------------------
