Is it sad that I'm glad? It's sort of like the Simpsons for me, something that I once loved so much that has been ruined forever. Now they just seem like a cruel joke I'd like to end.
All mistakes are not the same, and there are ones that ought to end a career. When the captain of a Navy ship has an accidental collision, his career is over. A sufficiently bad news article can wreck the lives of multiple innocent people, and kill public trust in the newspaper and the author. In this way, a bad editor or writer can do more damage in one decision than they can make up for in the entire rest their career.
I don't have an opinion on this case in particular, but there are cases where no amount of apologizing is enough. Becoming a copy writer for the rest of one's career does not strike me as a particularly cruel and unusual punishment.
>When the captain of a Navy ship has an accidental collision, his career is over.
Is that always true? I'm not so sure. And even if it is true, perhaps it should not be so. All kinds of professionals have accidents or errors and continue to work.
There's this apocryphal story that makes some sense.
Tom Watson Jr., CEO of IBM between 1956 and 1971, was a key figure in the information revolution. (...) A young executive had made some bad decisions that cost the company several million dollars. He was summoned to Watson’s office, fully expecting to be dismissed. As he entered the office, the young executive said, “I suppose after that set of mistakes you will want to fire me.” Watson was said to have replied,
“Not at all, young man, we have just spent a couple of million dollars educating you.”
"Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, who headed America's Asia-based 7th Fleet, has been relieved of his duties following the damage to the USS John S McCain."
Next up is the commander of the ship and the senior officers.
Being relieved of duties doesn't mean firing though. Could be that they become paper pushers. The next step would be court martial.
But yes, there are career ending mistakes. Especially when they cause the death of 7 people and takes a 9000 ton, $1.5 billion ship out of commission. The Arleigh Burke class also forms a good chunk of an aircraft carrier group's defensive perimeter, so by taking out these ships, these mistakes (whether one mistake or many mistake doesn't matter) puts approximately $30 Billion worth of military assets (not to mention the 5000+ people) at risk.
Perhaps this is why the Rolling Stone is for sale then?
Author and Editor fail to validate highly sensitive claims in an incredibly amateur fashion. * they did not even ask the accused for comment*.
Rather than separate from the author and Editor, and help them find a career elsewhere, the publication gives a pretty weak apology and doubles down on two individuals who obviously failed to follow basic journalism standards.
They don't need to be "parriahs", but I do think it rubbed readers the wrong way when RS continued to defend their work and ultimately gave a sour retraction ('we were hoodwinked!') and weak "sorry!".
They used their position with the public's trust to irrevocably harm people. Then when caught didn't seem to change much. That's an indication of an organization not to trust anymore.
But the real problem? It's just crappy journalism. Taking some half-assed, re-hashed current political narrative being peddled by somebody with emotional problems, forgetting the editing and fact-checking, and running with it front-page. They suck at their job. That's an indication of an organization that doesn't care about quality.
The best defense I can come up with for RS is that we live in a tough-as-nails media market, and everybody's having to cut corners and pump stories far past reason. Doesn't mean they suck any less, just that they suck as much as many other news outlets. They got caught.
Good journalism is rare and getting rarer. Whether RS fired anybody or not isn't very important. What _is_ important is that their publishing of the story and reaction to it forms a not-so-pretty picture of where the overall industry is.
First, there's a difference between malpractice and a mistake, even a serious one. The problem with the rolling stone incident, as I understand it, was that the editors failed to take the most basic, widely recognized steps to ensure integrity in a situation where they were unusually essential.
There's a difference between making a mistake as a lawyer, for instance, and breaching ethics, basic procedures, or committing "gross incompetency" in a way that gets you disbarred.
Furthermore, there's a huge difference between temporary disbarment and becoming a pariah that never works again in the field.
Now, law isn't journalism, there isn't a "bar" or a specific concept of disbarment, and rules are looser in journalism. But the journalists and editors behind this story do seem, by the standards of their profession, to have committed far more than a mistake. This was really, really serious, and goes deep into gross incompetence and breach of ethics.
In spite of this, and how outrageous it was, I do think the day could come where they'd be reasonably welcomed back into their profession as full members. But this was really serious, and I do think removal from their positions, and an extended period of working as a proofreader under the supervision of a journalist with a better track record, certainly isn't unreasonable.
In fact, it might be the sort of thing that would actually help the journalists and editors to re-enter their field again in the future, with trust.
Erdely did not just make "a mistake". The evidence is that she was grossly and willfully negligent in the very basics of journalism, e.g. soliciting information from the accused.
> What do you want, to have them be some parriahs that never find journalistic work again?
By the time the correction is issued, the false information has spread worldwide. There are still people who believe dumb conspiracy theories because the early coverage of events like Katrina and 9/11 got it wrong.
And the correction will never go viral the way the wrong-headed reporting will.
So yes, they shouldn't work again. And maybe if we burn enough people in such a way editors will pump the brakes a little on breaking news in such a way to avoid printing bullshit and infecting the public further.
I think it's partly an issue with retractions. Information can be kind of insidious, even when the consumer knows it is false. Fox news does tons of retractions (of course), but it's the way they do it that really tells you what they are about.
I'm all for free speech, but I wish we could get a handle on people saying completely wrong things for profit.
We published the article with the firm belief that it was accurate. Given all of these reports, however, we have come to the conclusion that we were mistaken in honoring Jackie's request to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. In trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault, we made a judgment – the kind of judgment reporters and editors make every day. We should have not made this agreement with Jackie and we should have worked harder to convince her that the truth would have been better served by getting the other side of the story. These mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie. We apologize to anyone who was affected by the story and we will continue to investigate the events of that evening.
Perhaps less controversially, the whole non-editorial editorial policy is super-vulnerable to manipulation. The source can stick anything they want into the stream since WikiLeaks' stated editorial policy is "that's not our job." Garbage in, garbage out.
If you've got bullshit that you want to look real, stick it in the middle of real shit and get WikiLeaks to leak it. Proof!
The parent comment is cherrypicking tweets from WikiLeaks. Take a look at [their actual feed][1]. They have since [discounted several conspiracy theories against Macron][2] and [brought into question the legitimacy of some of the files][3].
They routinely make claims not supported by the evidence they have. They retweeted the pizza child trafficking garbage, made up facts about redirecting responsibility for attacks.
This, exactly. They defend their claims by saying, "we're just asking the questions." There are tons (thousands, I would argue) of innocent victims who are put in the crosshairs because of WikiLeaks' agenda.
Do you have a source for that? My friend's company was the target of a huge smear campaign orchestrated by WikiLeaks, purely because they shared an address with a different company and had the word "Data" in their name.
The only people I know who would think WikiLeaks is infallible and an asset to society are frequenters of The_Donald and the conspiracy subreddits.
There is absolutely no way someone can be familiar with the last couple years of Wikileaks and say that. Wikileaks has been flagrantly incorrect. The only way to say something like this is to badly want it to be true.
A good starting search here would be "Wikileaks Turkey".
WikiLeaks may have a 100% track record of releasing accurate leaks, but they definitely have a poor track record of representing the leaked information accurately, and they know that the media reports on their analysis and not the raw leaks.
We’ve seen WikiLeaks do this before. Last July, right after the attempted coup in Turkey, WikiLeaks promised, with much fanfare, to release emails belonging to Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party. What WikiLeaks ultimately released, however, was nothing but mundane mailing lists of tens of thousands of ordinary people who discussed politics online. Back then, too, the ruse worked: Many Western journalists had hyped these non-leaks.
But they are neutral! It's like running into an Elemental Ice Golem. It's not good or evil, it's not left or right. It is just made of ice. WikiLeaks is an Elemental Truth & Leaks Golem. It doesn't give a shit whose agenda it helps, it just wants to expose more.
I would rather have a WikiLeaks that release everything that it can receives, rather than one that curates it's leaks for an agenda.
I have no doubt that Clinton was corrupt, but I think Trump is outright dangerous and a huge step backwards for the US. I'll take Clinton's status quo corruption, thank you very much.
Besides, your entire point rests upon the incorrect assumption that the other side isn't corrupt.
>your entire point rests upon the incorrect assumption that the other side isn't corrupt.
no it doesn't. Anyone's corruption should be exposed for the betterment of society.
Rather, it is your argument that solely depends on the belief that others ("the other side") MUST be guilty. I understand emotions run high to match the stakes since it was the presidential election after all, but you'll note I didn't make any value judgments either way. Just because we are convinced one party is guilty doesn't mean we should ignore evidence of another's corruption out of fairness.
[WikiLeaks has stated repeatedly that they publish everything they receive.][1] Blaming them for failing to release information from the other side assumes that they have that information to release.
And, if some bad actor, say the Russians, are giving them all their info, and they are publishing "everything they receive", does that make them neutral? Or a willing pawn?
Yes, and usually when I run into an elemental ice golem in a dungeon, it's because the bad guy has put it there as a trap for the good guys and walked away.
There is a sense in which you can call Wikileaks neutral, sure. But that doesn't mean that they actively ensure that they are politically neutral. Quite the opposite! They are uncaring. If one side feeds Wikileaks and not the other, Wikileaks will be 100% neutral in not shifting that balance. If anti-globalist forces consistently hack globalists and not vice versa and give that info to Wikileaks, sure, Wikileaks is going to say "We just want to expose more," but the set of information being exposed is extremely non-neutral!
I would rather not have an elemental ice golem at all, I think. And if I'm going to have an elemental ice golem, I would definitely prefer one that only attacks the bad guys than one that attacks "everyone" who happens to be in the secret entrance to the bad guys' lair.
They didn't seem to understand (or care?) what they did wrong and thus didn't really apologize.