Hacker News Reader

Comment by zorpner | Hacker News Reader

The decent response to "powerful tech executive considers doxxing female journalist who reports bad things about his company" is not to spend one paragraph thinking of every possible way he could be exonerated, then randomly slag online journalists with no-true-Scotsman arguments.

View on HN

And it's not just doxxing: we're talking about a company that has access to private data on people's movements. It's not hard to imagine how this info can be used to hurt their enemies.

I don't really care how "innocent" or "guilty" the VP is, just thinking out loud - playing devil's advocate if you will. :) That said, I still do think there is legitimate concern over the lack of consequence in general among journalists, although admittedly this was definitely the wrong article to bring this up on - I think I've started a witch hunt now :)

Why are "innocent" and "guilty" in scare quotes? Do you not believe in the concept of innocence or guilt?

There are a lot of lazy, opinionated, hacky journalists out there, certainly. That you seized upon someone discussing revenge fantasies towards a particular journalist to air your problems with journalists as a class of people is problematic and not at all classy.

If anyone holds the idea that the fundamental problem in journalism today is that journalists are insufficiently deferential to the rich and powerful, that idea is laughably wrong.

If anyone holds the idea that the world would be a better place if journalists were MORE afraid of the negative personal consequences to them of writing stories critical of people who are rich or influential, that idea is also laughably wrong.

I agree with all your points, but I think maybe you have misinterpreted my intentions. Also not trying to use scare quotes - sorry for any confusion there. I absolutely think that journalists should not fear going after anyone, only that they make certain their facts are straight first (there have been quite a few cases where false propaganda has done a huge amount of damage). Not saying that is the case here, just making a general statement :)

Please, just stop. You say you aren't defending this behavior, but you effectively are -- and it's behavior that is among the filthiest, nastiest behavior I've seen in two decades in this industry. This has absolutely nothing to do with your -- or anyone's -- "concern" about journalism; this is about a top executive at a top company threatening the most vile, most disgusting kind of retribution against a public critic. The behavior is entirely indefensible and inexcusable, and Emil Michael should (and no doubt will) lose his job over it. Kindly pick a different occasion to have a discussion about journalistic integrity; the only discussion to be had here is whether this incident is a single broken executive -- or an entirely rotten corporate culture.

Request granted. I think I'm only digging my pit deeper anyway :)

You claim that some journalists do not do adequate research, but have not provided any examples or evidence in support...

> playing devil's advocate if you will

I don't think that the CEO of Uber needs a white knight.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com