> On July 12th, I asked Rabbit Inc. if they had any comments to make on the content of this article,
> As of the end of July 15th, they have not responded.
Their lawyers are considering the options how to sue you.
> As of the end of July 15th, they have not responded.
Their lawyers are considering the options how to sue you.
Given that there was no new security vulnerability, it would have been completely reasonable to ask for a comment at the same time as hitting publish and note that they’d been asked for a comment and as of that time had not responded. Just as long as the post is updated if they do respond.
“Real” news sources do this all the time. There’s a difference between asking for a comment on an issue and responsible disclosure of a previously new vulnerability.
No, this is not responsible. The reader is not aware of the time difference and cannot distinguish between a lack of appropriate time to respond and the organization being subversive. Given the context, the usually implies the latter.
I wouldn't ever want this to legally be an issue, but we do have to recognize that a lot of language is implicit and that also matters. If you did such a think I believe it would be more ethical to write something along the lines of
> we reached out to <x> at the time of publishing and will update when we receive a response.
> On <date> the <y>-news team reached out to <x> and will update when we receive a response.
Not as shitty as some of the stuff the article finds of course, but still a completely unnecessary callout that detracts from the message on said stuff a bit.
You are free to think that I didn't give them enough time to respond, since "enough time" is subjective. But the amount of time I did give them was objectively reported.
It's now been the best part of 4 business days, and they still haven't responded, nor indicated an intent to respond. There's no way I was going to let them delay me indefinitely.
2. A weekend is very short time to give comment. If it's on such short notice, you'd generally call them to ask your questions on the phone or swiftly set up written correspondence.
3. One or two weeks, or even more, is a common time schedule for comments from the party being investigated when it comes to investigative journalism.
4. There is probably less than 0% chance that any other investigator would have published the scoop before you.
(It's so similar in parts that it almost looks like a rip-off of mine, but I do believe we were just thinking in the same direction)
Nonetheless, I reject the idea that saying "July 12th" instead of "Friday" is lying by omission.
You might disagree, because you might know what situation might prompt such an event, because you're a journalist, which is fine. But also, you're not writing for journalists; you're writing for the general public, such as myself.
Speaking for myself, if the article was written specifically for me, I'd consider such statements to be a blunder on the journalist's part, at best, and a very deliberate literary technique to ellicit a stronger emotional reaction, at worst. You're ofc not writing for me, but maybe you find the feedback interesting nevertheless.
When they write “did not respond to our request” it means they called or emailed and waited a few hours, possibly the next day.
Not really the same as what happened here, but thought it would be interesting to mention it here.
So the act of calling becomes 'the request'. Reminds me of 'but i replied to your email'. Yeah, but you didn't answer the questions in the email.