[WikiEN-l] News agencies are not RSs

[George Herbert]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 3:07 PM, <wjhonson at aol.com> wrote:
>
>  George you would have to show that, the action of suppression had a causative effect.

I don't believe that our (Jimmy et al's private) actions here "caused"
anything.  The combined effect of all of the media together embargoing
this is unclear.  What the NYT felt and convinced others was that the
situation, which was arguably very bad in real life, would not get
worse if it was held confidential for a time.  Causality is hard to
prove or argue, but it was held confidential for a time, and did not
get worse.

> But no one has shown that.? Rather what's happened is that a big ethics debate has erupted over learning that the NYTimes actively recruits others media outlets to suppress stories for some vague claim of protecting something or other.? What's not in evidence is exactly what they think suppressing from the general public, information already known to the captors, could possibly do.

The entire value here is in minimizing the apparent political and
media impact of the kidnapping, in terms of its value to the
kidnappers.  If they are focused on monetary gain, then minimizing the
apparent significance of the reporter by lowering their profile, and
humanizing them by carefully and in a limited fashion emphasizing
their humanitarian contributions, can reduce the expected ransom value
and enthusiasm with which the captors will bargain (and risk that
they'd kill him out of spite, if negotiations go badly).

If they are focused on making a media statement, either with PR
exploitation of the kidnapee or by murdering them in a very public
manner, the victim having a lower profile makes the value of such a
statement lower, and if they weren't rapidly killed to make a public
statement the odds that they will survive longer or eventually escape
or be rescued increase.

On the practical side, our (again, Jimmy et al's - I had no idea this
was going on) actions were consistent with what other media were
doing, embargoing the story as it were, and if it was ethical for the
BBC and Washington Post and Time and CNN to embargo it then I don't
believe it was unethical for us to.


On a more theoretical note...

Wikipedia's value is maximized if we're seen by our readers and our
writers as a combination of useful (can find what I'm looking for),
reliable (what I find is truthful), relatively complete, and ethical
source of information.

We chose not to publish many categories of information, because there
is a lack of reliable sources for it, it would be illegal to publish
it, or it would be unethical for us to publish it.

There is plenty of information I know which is not in Wikipedia - some
because I can't provide verifiable reliable sources, some because it
would be unethical to publish it, some because it's classified
information and while I learned it outside of "official" channels and
am not subject to security clearance related publication limits, it
would be better for at least the US and probably the world if it's not
discussed widely.

The balance we're using is working for our public reputation among
readers, the media, media critics and internet critics, policymakers.
In this particular case, the controversy seems limited to our own
internal review.  I would rather ten internal shitstorms than one
"Kidnapped reporter murdered - Wikipedia to blame" editorial in the
New York Times if we chose to do otherwise.  The overall balance says
we have done right here.

Thank you, Jimmy.  I believe that you and (functionaries, or whoever)
called this one right.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com