[Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

[Andre Engels]

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 6:21 PM, Mike Godwin <mnemonic at gmail.com> wrote:

> It wasn't a response -- I hadn't read your comment yet.  But when I did see
> your comment, I thought it missed the point that Fox was always going to
> congratulate itself on its story, regardless of what we did or didn't do in
> response. I've been dealing with media strategy, both as a reporter and as
> someone who has to respond to media, for nearly three decades now. The issue
> isn't whether you can persuade Fox of anything -- Fox is not the kind of
> organization you can have a discussion with.

So instead we just give in to them? We get attacked and decide to just
sit up like a good dog? We don't just say they're wrong, we join in to
congratulate them.

>> Perhaps I simply misunderstand how irresponsible and influential Fox
>> news is, but I would have thought that being able to show that the
>> images aren't illegal while also showing that we're having a reasoned
>> discussion about whether we want the legal ones or not would have been
>> an effective counter to the negative PR Fox is creating.
>
> I promise you, this would almost certainly not be an effective counter.

Not towards Fox, but how about other news avenues? And in the end, I
think our policy here should be based on our own principles, not on
what others may or may not say about us. Maybe for US members this is
different, but to me, our own ideas and values (as exemplarized in the
board statement on this subject - the question should be whether the
image has educational value) should not be sacrificed to our
popularity with a part of our audience. Even less should they be
sacrificed in a way that is likely to be uneffective (you yourself
said that Fox will present whatever we do as a proof of them being
right and us being wrong).

-- 
André Engels, andreengels at gmail.com