The stunning hypocrisy of VentureBeat's attack on Y Combinator | Hacker News Reader

The stunning hypocrisy of VentureBeat's attack on Y Combinator

influencehacks.com

27 pointsghost317 comments

Ironically, all you're doing with a post like this is helping her. The right response to bullshit stories --- the norm at Venturebeat --- is to ignore them and continue to cultivate the expectation that there's little good that will come from that venue at all. It's a Venturebeat story. Of course it's preposterous. Let's move on.

While I would agree with you normally, that's actually not the best route to take for attacks that have a certain amount of credibility. It's important to get out in front of it and debunk it.

That's why Obama always has people that break down the blatant lies that come from the right's attack.

Having a journalist write a scathing piece on the motives of an email that commented on Google Ventures, without detailing the connection with that blogger and Google Ventures speaks volumes about where the piece is coming from.

As far as I am concerned, VentureBeat is fully discredited. How can I trust what they say again?

Sure, everybody makes mistakes....but this is inexcusable.

It's the same way I look at Fox. I can't take Fox seriously, because they are so blatantly partisan, it's ridiculous. The same applies to MSNBC...so it's not a partisan statement.

The lack of disclosure, on a piece like this, is disconcerting.

I second this. This isn't some internet troll that should simply be ignored. If left completely unchallenged, the base assumption by many not familiar with the context will be to take it at face value.

On the contrary, I think publications like Venturebeat are, quite literally, the professionalized form of internet trolls. If I'm right, it's definitely not a good strategy to engage with them.

Well...there are many that might not see them like that. I, didn't view them as that. Partly because I don't pay much attention to them, but when an interesting article that they wrote appears on HN I would read it.

But now, I am much more likely to read it with a skeptical eye - and possibly not even read it altogether.

This cuts to the heart of journalism.

It's the equivalent of the WSJ or NYT writing a hit piece on either campaign, just to find out that the author's wife/husband is a top advisor for the candidate - without them explicitly stating that in the piece.

The most ironic thing about the VB piece, is that the title is: "Paul Graham’s ‘lowball’ accusation of Google Ventures may hide an ulterior motive".

How ironic that allegations surface that may hide an ulterior motive for VB.

No kidding, VentureBeat should just change their tag to YBHT HAND.

Don't feed the trolls!

He does point that out in his post.

But you are correct. I'm only aware of Venturebeat when their drama makes HN or TechCrunch.

Actually, this article by itself looks more like a rant than anything else and actually seems to defeat the purpose of an 'invite-only', 'quality-oriented' network that SVBTLE claims to be.

If the two photos of Graham come from the same source image, then it looks like the microphone on the first image (http://5.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/paul-graham.j...) was airbrushed out (http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pg-lowball.jp...). (Unless a microphone was airbrushed in for the first image.) Just thought that was curious, in addition to the desaturation...

Here is the photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jolieodell/4525127286/in/photos...

The link from the article links directly to that, and yet they heavily manipulated it and call it journalism.

The shadow of the mike's been left on the cheek and there's some fairly obvious photoshopping of the wire on the ear and the t-shirt.

They've also removed the red-eye and spruced up his eyes.

The second one has shadows by the neck that were blurred to hide the mic shadow.

This seems like a lot of image manipulation for a "honest" journalist.

You know those signs at the zoo, "Do not feed the animals". How come we all learned not to do that as kids but can't help but look at the train wreck in motion that is VB.

VB uses the same approach as sports writers, be controversial cause the fans will read even if its just to complain about you.

I thought that was just Business Insider.

VB occasionally has a story worth reading. But usually they're just rehashing what everyone else had yesterday.

I recently read the book: "Trust Me, I'm Lying" which talks about how these types of blog posts. Now it's so obvious when I see this kind of stuff.

Here's the book: http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...

Which blog post are you referring to, the original or the debunking?

the original: http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/07/lowball/

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