Scripting News

Chickenshit?

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 23:51:54 GMT

I got a call from Mary Trigiani on Wednesday night. A regular reader of this blog, Silicon Valley communication consultant, cookbook author, sister of a famous author, and friend.

She had been at a conference on advertising in the new era, a panel discussion that included AlwaysOn publisher Tony Perkins and Kourosh Karimkhany from Wired Digital. The panel turned to the discussion that was brewing in our corner of the blogosphere about the role of sources and our relationship to reporters.

Based on Mary's account I expressed optimism for how Wired was rising to the occasion. And it totally didn't surprise me that Perkins took a couple of personal and cheap shots at Calacanis and myself.

One more loose-end to take care of...

Last night, I said I might offer the email I sent to the Wired reporter, Fred Vogelstein, on April 24. The text follows.

"I don't think you would have gotten anytihng from a phone talk with me or Calacanis. We do all our business via email, and in blog posts, and in comments.

"Go read Mike's Crunchnotes post. You'll see his view of the world. See my response, and that's how I push back against his view.

"The fact that all this exploded into Techmeme today made your story. Start reading, and post questions in the comments on all the blog posts that puzzle you. Make sure they know you're from Wired.

"If you're creative you'll get a wonderful story.

"Think of yourself as an American in Iraq."

In other words, do research, the story is on the web, not the telephone.

Phone intervews

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:30:18 GMT

Now, after all the michegas about how I like to do interviews in blog posts, largely because they create a record that can be easily verified after a story runs, let me say that I often consider doing phone and face to face interviews, and sometimes I do them.

A couple of examples.

1. Recently we celebrated the 10th anniversary of Scripting News. There wasn't a lot of press in the U.S., or in the blogosphere, but interestingly, the story got a fair amount of play in newspapers in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The Guardian (U.K.) wanted to do a piece about it, on a very short deadline, and wanted a phone interview.

Now, I have a long-standing gripe with the Guardian, in 2004 they ran a highly conflicted, perfectly awful article about RSS, as the "wars" were settling down, a piece written by one of the partisans, that reflected his point of view, and was presented as news, not comment. Others were not given an opportunity to respond. This is the kind of conflicted reporting that I just can't support, and won't. When I asked the Guardian to look into it, politely but openly, they attacked my qualifications and character, and that was it.

So when the reporter asked for the interview, in 2007, we had a long email exchange about the basis for trust -- why should I work with the Guardian when they hadn't responded adequately to a legitimate inquiry. After much consideration, I didn't do the interview, and didn't link to the piece because like many press reports, they called me a nasty personal name. I hate that part of what they do. They have no insight into who I am personally, and I felt given the dispute that this was their way of getting even. It looks bad, and in reporting, how it looks matters.

Net-net, what might have been fun, even interesting, was miserable. That's the Guardian.

2. On the other side, I did a classic phone interview with a SF Chronicle reporter a week or so ago, shortly after the Virginia Tech massacre, to talk about the releasing of the videos from NBC. I wanted to discuss this with a news reporter, who I felt might have an opinion about it, who would likely want to view the videos himself, rather than have them filtered for him by a competitor. I wasn't disappointed.

I chose to do that interview because there was something in it for me. And while I was extensively quoted in his article, all the quotes came from my blog, because (I hope) they most clearly represented my point of view, much better than my conversational quotes would have.

How to linkbait me

Today's meme, thanks to Jason Calacanis, is linkbaiting. Not why it's bad, or why he won't do it, or respond to it; rather what you should say if you want him to link to you, and what you shouldn't say.

Okay I'm game, even though this is likely to spawn backlash from the people who say the A-list sucks or it's a boys club, or whatever.

First, in the positive -- here are things that get my attention and make it more likely I will link.

1. Your name is Scott Rosenberg. He's a Berkeley neighbor, founding editor of Salon, a very nice person, but none of that is why I will link to his pieces more often than not. The basic reason is he generally says things I find interesting, even essential. Very rarely do his posts mention me or my work, so clearly I'm not being linkbaited. He's a good journalist, and imho a great thinker, and a very lucid writer.

2. It says it on the What is Scripting News page: "A link on Scripting News means that I thought that the story was interesting, and felt that an informed person would want to consider the point of view expressed in the piece." I know it's corny, but that's more often than not the reason I link.

3. If you link to something I wrote recently and add something to the discussion, esp an experience or point of view that hasn't come up before. I often start threads here, or pick up threads from other sites. If you're continuing a discussion that's hot right now, I'm likely to link.

4. If you say I deserve a MacArthur or Pulitzer, I'll probably link to that.

Now reasons I might not link.

1. If you call someone, esp me, a bad name.

2. In an email or other kind of direct communication you say or imply that I have an obligation to link. Anything other than "FYI" or "I thought you might find this interesting" is pretty much guaranteed not to get a link from me.

3. Lack of reciprocity. If I observe over time that the linking is one-way, i.e. I link to you but even when I'm on-topic for you, I don't get a link from you, that will dampen my enthusiasm.

PS: Obviously this is one of those times Jason wants some link-love. Jason, if you're reading this, see item #3 above.