And yet counterintuitive.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| vainrveenr Nov 06, 2008 6:17 PM EDT |
Now what exactly is the high-level domain of pundit Keith Olbermann's pro-Obama OpEd 'Countdown' site http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ ??
Furthermore, who can realistically expect that the 'MS' in the 'Countdown' site is any different from the very same Microsoft which has typically been so Open Source averse !!!?????
Please feel free to explain away the obvious discrepancy here. |
| ColonelPanik Nov 06, 2008 6:23 PM EDT |
VV, Good point. |
| tuxchick Nov 06, 2008 7:07 PM EDT |
I'm not sure I see your point, vainrveenr. Writers and journalists don't have control over their publishers, and if the publisher uses a Microsoft backend that doesn't mean the writer is a Microsoft shill. |
| vainrveenr Nov 06, 2008 9:09 PM EDT |
Quoting:Writers and journalists don't have control over their publishersIn point of fact, publishers do have the complete right to exercise "control" over their writers and journalists, and publishers have most certainly been known to enact such controls when deemed necessary. An easily-accessible example of such a "right of control" is within LX'ers own 'Terms of Service and Code of Conduct', http://lxer.com/module/pages/v/12/ As written in section 6, verbatim: Quoting: 6. Do not place any material on our service that could be considered offensive, indecent, abusive, hateful, harassing, libelous, profane, vulgar or unlawful. Our audience tends to be professional in nature, and we have the right, but not the obligation, to remove, edit, or relocate any content that we feel violates the standards of our site. Because of the real-time nature of our forums, it is not always possible for us to remove offensive material immediately.Those journalists or commentators who submit written material that "could be considered offensive, indecent, abusive, hateful, harassing, libelous, profane, vulgar or unlawful" may indeed be committing what is referred to within some spheres as "sins of commission" (see the WikiAnswers' 'What is a sin of commission?' definition at http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_sin_of_commission) Note that although "sins of omission" are also defined in this particular WikiAnswers page, this latter omissions concept may be much more relevant for outward perceptions of journalistic honesty, integrity and trustworthiness than this would be for publishers' actual rights and obligations. Indeed, perhaps a more careful review of any material regularly omitted from a particular site or backend becomes significantly more revealing of its honesty, integrity and trustworthiness than the content regularly included --- whether such an omission is by design or in a supposedly "happenstance" fashion. |
| tuxchick Nov 06, 2008 9:23 PM EDT |
That's quite a stretch. Of course publishers exercise editorial control, that's their job. In some publications advertisers have an unhealthy level of influence, but after 13 years in the business I have never heard of the IT department trying to exercise editorial control. Your example doesn't support your point anyway, since Keith Olbermann is talking about open source in a knowledgeable way-- on MSNBC. |
| lcafiero Nov 06, 2008 9:29 PM EDT |
I'm with tuxchick here: I don't see your point, double v, especially since the point of my posting the original item and the video that went with it is that a CNN pundit -- a Republican pundit at that (and the guy who was responsible for the Swift boat ads in 2004; not exactly a flaming liberal) -- pointed out that the "bottom up" nature of the incoming administration reflects the open source nature which Eric Raymond wrote about in "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." If you don't believe me, Alex Castellanos even agreed with my assessment in responding to my blog item on the topic. See his response to my blog for yourself here: http://larrythefreesoftwareguy.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/alex... As much as I think Olbermann is a saint, I don't know how he fits in to Castellanos' gift in giving FOSS the best 30 seconds of national air time in quite awhile, unless you're suggesting that a pundit at MSNBC isn't saying the same thing because MSNBC is run by Microsoft. |
| jhansonxi Nov 06, 2008 10:44 PM EDT |
Lets not forget the wonderful Silverlight-disabled 2008 Democrat Convention: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_democrat_convention#Web_Si... |
| flufferbeer Nov 07, 2008 1:41 AM EDT |
I'd agree with both sides on this. @tc and icafiero These are good examples of Keith Olbermann not acting as an M$$hill just because the monopoli$t's name is on his site! Thanks for pointing this out. He's been a good commentator throughout the whole election year and has a great deal of integrity in my eyes. @vv and the others, I think I know what you're trying to communicate: 1. Keith Olbermann has been a pro-Obama independent journalist on a site hosted with M$'s name in it. 2. Because Olbermann's site has the M$ name in it, it is somehow associated with the parent company. 3. The parent company, M$, can effectively somehow control Olbermann's content whether by introducing pro-M$ material or by omitting as much pro Open Source material as it possibly can. 4. Therefore, it seems puzzling to v that Obama could be pro Open Source while M$ has seemed so very supportive of Obama through whatever connection it has to Olbermann. Is this all correct? If so, then I'd write that the weakest part of all this is the conclusion prompting the thread; part 4. Olbermann's comments this Election year are an immensely weak link between Obama and his being the Open Source president (or even his being a pro-monopoli$t president that Bush has been claimed to be!) As already pointed out above, Castellanos, Olbermann and other journalists continue to write best about what they are knowledgeable in rather than engaging in handwaving speculation completely outside their areas of specialty. OTOH, I'd heartily agree with points 2 and 3 of this argument and with jhson. Of course M$NBC is connected with M$, what else was anyone thinking?! Naturally M$ being what it is, if the parent company somehow sees that it is getting a bad report by one or more of the journalist bloggers using its services and it sees that more and more people are actually VIEWING this report, it then has a clear incentive to fix this up in whatever way it can. A bad report affects its bottom line of product sales. And BTW, it has an incentive NOT to have its competitors such as Open Source mentioned too much by such bloggers using its services. All of us have seen M$'s actions in getting viewed positively by the greatest number of IT folks. IIRC, a few years ago M$ offered a free Acer laptop to bloggers who tried out its Vista beta and reported positively. Stories of other positive incentives continue to spread about. Micro$hill banner ads wherever you go. FUD and the threat of legal actions for those who are perceived to ignore or to circumvent the great Redmond Monopoli$t. Many of us could even see how M$ would shield any possible further exposure of Open Source's benefits to the public or to Obama's staff just as it managed to do for the whole OOXML vs ODF standard-adoption fiasco. I can therefore see that there is much too much temptation for M$ to jump right in and somehow interfere whenever it sees that popular journalists using its services are given too much free rein to criticize it and/or to praise its competition. My 2c. |
| rijelkentaurus Nov 07, 2008 10:13 AM EDT |
The rules aren't quite the same for a popular journalist, and Olbermann is able to be more direct and honest (blatantly calling Bush a liar and suggesting that he needed to be impeached, for example). If he decided to leave, he'd have a job waiting for him at just about any place he wanted, and a huge following that would go with him. Such massive popularity removes a lot of the editorial power MSNBC/MS would have, since he is responsible for bringing in milliions upon millions of dollars with his show's advertising revenue. Basically, unless he were to screw up severely with some massive social faux pas, his job and his integrity are safe. |
| bigg Nov 07, 2008 11:36 AM EDT |
If we're going to compare MSNBC and CNN, MSNBC is much FOSS-friendlier. I have no trouble viewing streaming video from MSNBC, I even watched post-election coverage streamed live by MSNBC. OTOH the ###### at CNN have invested a lot of time and effort making sure you can't watch videos with Linux. And for what it's worth, foxnews.com has always been fully accessible. I've never had a problem. |
| Bob_Robertson Nov 07, 2008 12:20 PM EDT |
Sadly, Olberman has chosen to not apply the same level of honesty to the president-elect. But that's ok. I prefer people's biases to be right up front, so I can understand their positions. The lie will be if Olberman says he's being "fair". |
| jdixon Nov 07, 2008 12:53 PM EDT |
> f we're going to compare MSNBC and CNN, MSNBC is much FOSS-friendlier.... And for what it's worth, foxnews.com has always been fully accessible. Yeah, there seems to be little correlation between politics and FOSS accessibility. And CNN is about as FOSS unfriendly as you can get. |
| devnet Nov 10, 2008 12:24 PM EDT |
The stupid part about all of this is...Obama's campaign was free software associated...but not for the reasons you all want to believe. 1. He wasn't in it for the ideology, he was in it for the cost Obama funded his own campaign...that means keeping costs low. He doesn't give two squirts about what you, I, or Joe FOSS down the street thinks about how software should be free. He doesn't care about open source...it was a tool to get him into office and the price was just right. 2. His campaign selected proprietary streaming software As posted in the link above by jhansonxi, Democrats thought it wise to use proprietary software to broadcast their convention and obama acceptance of the nomination. This further proves #1...he's not in it for the idealogy...he's in it for the cost. I wonder how much Microsoft gave to his campaign and the DNC in order to get rights to broadcast this? If you don't think Obama would do that...just remember that Microsoft HAS ALWAYS supported him for President...and Microsoft isn't above doing something like that...buying rights to broadcast/sponsor something. 3. Platform does not = Ideology I use MS Software and platforms daily. I work on websites that run on Microsoft Servers. I create cold fusion and asp web pages daily. I work with MS Servers on a MS domain. I blog about MS Software/Services/Functions/Exchange. Despite all of this, I also have one of the top Linux Blogs on the face of the planet. Are you guys telling me that because some of my stuff is hosted on Microsoft Platforms and has ties to Microsoft, that somehow I'm less than true to open source and Linux? That's horsecrap. It's weak association...kind of like the whole Ayers and Obama ties were during the election. Trying to say that a journalist is biased because the website is hosted by MS and with MS software is like saying you guys are all in with Oil companies because your car burns gas. It's idiotic and it's a straw man. |
| tuxchick Nov 10, 2008 12:34 PM EDT |
Quoting: I also have one of the top Linux Blogs on the face of the planet. Linky? |
| devnet Nov 10, 2008 12:54 PM EDT |
tc: Yet Another Linux Blog: http://linux-blog.org Top = search engine results ;) I can't get the same exposure as the big media sites but I like to think I make up in quality vs. quantity. |
| tuxchick Nov 10, 2008 12:57 PM EDT |
Nice, thanks. No worries, CNet/ZDNet/BNet has cornered the quantity market. :) |
| NoDough Nov 10, 2008 1:45 PM EDT |
Nice blog devnet. Why no link to your LXer profile under Where to find me online? |
| devnet Nov 19, 2008 9:52 AM EDT |
If we can get Lxer to plug its comment/forum system into a social network api, I'd plaster it all over that portion of my blog (it's done automatically) |
| herzeleid Nov 19, 2008 1:46 PM EDT |
Quoting:I use MS Software and platforms daily. I work on websites that run on Microsoft Servers. I create cold fusion and asp web pages daily. I work with MS Servers on a MS domain. I blog about MS Software/Services/Functions/Exchange. Despite all of this, I also have one of the top Linux Blogs on the face of the planet.Good question. Just out of curiosity, is it important to you to be thought of as "true to open source and linux"? |
| devnet Dec 04, 2008 12:14 PM EDT |
Quoting:Just out of curiosity, is it important to you to be thought of as "true to open source and linux"? It's important to me that I think of myself as being true to open source and Linux...but I really don't care if others think of me as that. So it's my perception I worry about. I prefer free software and open source software to Microsoft any day. However, I also accept the fact that MS is embedded into the enterprise and that I'll need to be well versed on it there to succeed in my daily work. At home, I'm all about Linux...I prefer to not use Antivirus and love the freedom it gives me to fix whatever I need to whenever I need to. If people think of me as being not true to open source and Linux because I use both Linux and Windows and freely share tips/tricks for both platforms, I can't change their mind. I can only continue to help people find Linux, succeed using Linux, and get tips and tricks for both Linux and Windows platforms. I'm not out to win popularity contests or prove I'm the most "true to open source"...I'm out to help people and share information. |
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