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Ethics
Friday, May 13 2005 @ 11:40 AM EDT

LinuxWorld's James Turner has posted the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics, and spells out specifically all the ways he sees Maureen O'Gara's smear attack on me to have violated them. [Update: It was here: http://turner.linuxworld.com/index.cfm?d=12&m=5&y=2005 but it no longer resolves.] He left one off the list, at least: She never contacted me before running the story to ask if her facts were true or false. That is a very basic requirement.

You can read the Code of Ethics in full here. Here is one of my favorite parts currently:

Journalists should: Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media.

All I ever did to Ms. O'Gara was point out errors in her articles. And I'll tell you another thing. Before I did that, I wrote to her on several occasions, privately offering corrections and telling her she could contact me any time and I'd gladly help her to get her facts straight. She never bothered to even answer my emails.

Also, Turner and Dan Lyons of Forbes had a conversation, which Turner has memorialized on his blog. According to Mr. Turner's account, Mr. Lyons is defending what Miss O'Gara wrote and has decided to pick up the baton and attack Groklaw next. What a surprise.

Regarding my anonymity, according to Lyons, there is none such. I worked for OSRM and announced it publicly on Groklaw. Anyone in the world was able to contact me there in any normal fashion they chose. It's obvious I am a real person. This is a red herring.

If I am anonymous and not a real person, why did Mr. Lyons quote me in the first attack article he wrote about Groklaw? You remember. The one where he told the world I lived in White Plains. I'll tell you now the rest of the story. When he interviewed me for that story, he asked me where I lived and I wouldn't tell him and I asked him to avoid saying where I lived, because, as I told him, I was concerned about stalking. I thought we agreed on that. Anyway, I didn't live in White Plains, so he had his facts wrong, but the point is, he tried to out me too, just so he could put out the innuendo that I was located near IBM, as if that meant something, despite what I told him. I answered that false accusation here.

I saw from that experience that the SCO gang's hatred for me is apparently so extreme they don't care what happens to me or if I am endangered by them. When that article came out, I decided I'd never again do a telephone interview, and I never have. It's not that I am trying to be mysterious. It's that I found out that there are some journalists who will do you real harm just for a headline or to please someone with an axe to grind against you. Linus told me if you do interviews by email, you have more control, of yourself and what you say and of the result.

I am also a normal person, and I work from home now. No normal person wants their home address or phone number plastered on the Internet while they know they are being stalked and they have concerns about their safety. If you knew the Mob was after you, for example, would you put up your picture on your website, your home address and your phone number? I know SCO means to harm me. They've been attacking my reputation for a long time now, including repeating the false information from Dan Lyons that I supposedly lived in White Plains, trying to imply the same false association with IBM that he started. I just don't know to what degree they will take it. But do you see what I mean that the attacks on me are coordinated?

Regarding my allegedly calling Miss O'Gara a Nazi, according to Mr. Lyons in the Turner piece, that is not true. I never did. However, Miss O'Gara did compare me to a serial killer on the run. Here is the simile that Mr. Lyons is misrepresenting:

"And everybody on the dark side attacks Groklaw these days, including Ms. O'Gara, not just Daniel Wallace. I'm starting to figure out it's coordinated, not random. They seem to just pass the baton around, taking turns like Nazi interrogators in World War II beating prisoners, so none of them ever got tired but the victim never got a moment's relief, not that it helped them win the war. [Note it's a simile, a limited simile, to a technique of a group attacking a single individual by turns, not comparing anyone to Nazis, just to a technique they were famous for.]"

I added the clarification note, after Dan Lyons contacted me by email, trying to twist what I said, as is his wont. I think it isn't that he misunderstands. It's that he is like a buzzard hunched on a tree limb, always on the alert for anything he can swoop down and attack me for. He clearly has a pro-SCO, anti-IBM, anti-Linux bias which shines through everything he writes, and he should reread the Code of Ethics, methinks. He should also put down the Yellow Journalism baton. It's unseemly. And if Forbes allows him to continue, they are responsible, not just Mr. Lyons.

An eagerness to blame the Linux community can cause false accusations to be lodged that later have to be retracted. There is a kind of apology from Sys-con here. Lots of reactions to all this, including one of my favorites here. Sys-con wishes me the best in all my endeavors. Thank you. But please tell me, what shall we say to the elderly woman, who is not a public figure and has no involvement with the running of Groklaw at all (neither of the individuals in the article have anything to do with running Groklaw), who had her home address, with pictures of the house and one showing the number on the mailbox, posted on the Internet for any criminal or loonie to find, thanks to Miss O'Gara's failure to abide by the Code of Ethics? How do we make her whole? Will Sys-con or Miss O'Gara pay for the bodyguard? For the medical expenses that stemmed from the situation? And if that elderly heart gives out under the stress, then what will they do for her? It isn't just the Journalists' Code of Ethics that was violated:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

"Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

"Article 17
1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks....
Countries which have Signed but not yet Ratified this document...
United States of America"

The conscience of the whole world condemns such behavior. And when Sys-Con and Ms. O'Gara violated all of the above, the whole world was revolted.

Except for the dark side, as I call them. They still don't understand, judging from the conversation Mr. Lyons had with Mr. Turner, why the entire world condemns such thuggery so strongly they put it in writing in treaties and codes of ethics, so that conscienceless, empathy-starved people will know where the line is that the rest of us, humans with a heart, have drawn in the sand.


  


Ethics | 339 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
OT posts here, please
Authored by: overshoot on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:04 PM EDT
It's courteous to post links as <a
href="http://www.example.com/">clickable HTML</a>. As
always, it's a good idea to preview your posts.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Corrections Here
Authored by: network_noadle on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:07 PM EDT
Corrections in this thread, so's PJ can find them.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Its LinuxWorld Editorial Piece, might not be representative of SysCon company
Authored by: cinly on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:13 PM EDT
I read the editorial piece "A letter to our reader". It is way short
of an apology.

As it is on LinuxWorld and I do not know whether they carried the story on their
website, so I was not sure if they have anything to appologize. Don't get me
wrong, if they in anyway publish the story on LinuxWorld, they will have to
apologize unreservedly. The beginning of the editorial suggests that they did
not.

Moreover, it may be just LinuxWorld editors who decided to write the piece
independently of Sys-con. As Sys-con is perfectly entitled to use one of its
magazine's editorial to issue an apology, this one miss it by a hundred mile. A
proper apology will need the world "Sorry" or "we apologize"
or something on this line, *and* will have to appear on ALL sites that carry the
MOG story at the minimum.



---
All views expressed here are my own and do not reflect that of any institution I
am affiliated to

[ Reply to This | # ]

Ethics
Authored by: zzeep on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:15 PM EDT
You of course have the right to "self defense" but if their tactic is
to divert our attention from the lawsuit towards trivial things like who's who,
then they certainly seem to succeed.

If someone slings mud at you, you should duck and ignore them. The more
attention they receive, the better they like it.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Even if the story were true ...
Authored by: mk270 on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:20 PM EDT
It's hardly helping SCO's case that their whole company was brought to grief by
a little old lady with a laptop. Heaven knows where they'd be if they had
competitors to worry about as well.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Boies is sponsored by IBM
Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:23 PM EDT
He has an office near IBM headquarters.

---
Rsteinmetz

"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk

[ Reply to This | # ]

Lame apology
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:24 PM EDT
Sys-con should be ashamed of themselves, going an about their 'ethics' and
wishing PJ the best. I guess that's to be expected considering the quality of
their 'publications'.

Pretty Lame,
--glenn

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sun to Buy Tarantella for $25 Million
Authored by: IMANAL on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:31 PM EDT
Hrrrmm... Who is pushing what here??

"Tarantella was originally known as the Santa Cruz Operation, which was focused on the Unix operating system developed by AT&T Corp. starting in the late 1960s. In 1995, it acquired the rights to Unix from Novell Inc., which had bought them from AT&T.

In 2001, the Santa Cruz Operation sold its Unix-related businesses to Linux operating system distributor Caldera Inc., which would later become the SCO Group Inc. The Santa Cruz company that remained became Tarantella.

In recent years, SCO has claimed elements of the Linux operating system contain code from its Unix technology. The largest of its claims, against IBM Corp., is being handled in a federal court in Utah, where SCO is now based."


Full article at Yahoo.



---

--------------------------
IM Absolutely Not A Lawyer

[ Reply to This | # ]

I don't know PJ
Authored by: stevers on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:33 PM EDT
I don't know PJ
I have never worked with PJ
Lyons, O'Gara, DiDio, you are no PJ

[ Reply to This | # ]

MOG has removed her mogwash
Authored by: _Arthur on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:39 PM EDT
The Defaming article is no longer on-line at ClientServerNews and
LinuxGram.

Instead there is a spin piece on IBM being forced to unseal documents due to
a G2 motion.

And "Brazil Screw Microsoft", those fiendish Brazilians forge ahead
with Open
Source, despite all the great things M$ had done for Brazil.

"Microsoft has just started selling one of those low-cost Starter Editions
it
created for rebellious, Linux-bedazzled or pirate-ridden third-world
countries in Brazil." (sic)

So the Revolution is expected to be Crushed soon, Maureen ?

_Arthur

[ Reply to This | # ]

Probably not an apology
Authored by: cinly on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:40 PM EDT

I may be wrong but ... ([] mine)

We avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, or social status.

[good. Ref A]

We feel a sense of urgency on matters related to our readers. We show ownership of our problems and we are always responsive.

[glad to see that they felt the pressure. Responsive? No. ref B]

We also choose to pursue the truth through honest and forthright methods, never by clandestine or surreptitious methods unless conventional methods will not yield vital information to the public We disclose these methods in any story and only pursue them as a last resort.

[glad to hear that]

Our mission is to support the Open Source community by giving them the strongest voice and sharing information about their accomplishments in a truthful and positive way. We also strive to cover the shortcomings or problems we see with Linux and Open Source from an objective point of view.

[propaganda]

These guidelines are inspired by Charles Brewer, founder of MindSpring, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Christian Science Monitor, and the values of the LinuxWorld editorial staff.

We want to express our sincere best wishes to Pamela Jones of Groklaw (www.groklaw.net) and wish her the best in her endeavors.

Read the last paragraph, together with [ref A] (we do not descriminate) and [ref B] (We take ownership of responsibility) shows that they did not feel that they had descriminated against PJ and therefore have no need to take responsibility.

May be I'm just paranoid

---
All views expressed here are my own and do not reflect that of any institution I am affiliated to

[ Reply to This | # ]

How to Apolgise
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:42 PM EDT
1) Acknowlege your responsability for what happened
2) Express remorse
3) Explain what went wrong
4) Explain what you will do to prevent problem in future

Given the letter posted I figured someone better explain how it works

[ Reply to This | # ]

So which is better?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:42 PM EDT
Which is better?

- Send James Turner's article to the editors of Forbes now, and suggest that
they carefully review Lyons' forthcoming screed in light of Turner's article,
and hopefully prevent the article from ever seeing the light of day, or

- Wait for the Lyon's article to appear, and then send Turner's article to the
editors of Forbes, and try to get Lyons permanently barred from Forbes?

PJ, any comments? You are the one the mud is being flung at, so it seems a bit
presumptuous for us to choose for you...

MSS

[ Reply to This | # ]

Ethics
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 12:47 PM EDT
I like this one:

Journalists should: Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news
media.

I noticed that only SJVN was the only journalist that remotely called MOG to
task for what she had done. All the others, the ones that gave Darl so much air
time, were silent. It would be nice if MOG's peers would have said how wrong and
unethical her behaviour was.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Ethics - lawyers must have them too
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:01 PM EDT
Interesting you mention ethics. Just yesterday afternoon I was discussing a
case with a local judge and prominent attorney who mentioned that he printed up
a little pamphlet derrived from one of the bar associations on legal ethics and
behavior. He said whenever a lawyer in his courtroom steps over the line he
calls him to the bench, hands him one, and instructs him to read it as unethical
behavior will not be tolerated in his court.

Of course, the conversation turned to the antics of the SCOX legal team. My
feeling all along, and this judge's opinion, is that such behavior occurs
because it is permitted and that judges have a moral duty to keep the players
honest and ethical.

[ Reply to This | # ]

The Sys-Con Business Model
Authored by: Dana Blankenhorn on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:07 PM EDT
One of the problems we find with Sys-Con lies in their business model.

When I approached them about working, a few years ago, they were paying bupkis,
the null set, the bagel. Nothing.

Instead, they were looking for people to post their stuff on their site for its
"publicity value."

This appears to be the deal they had with O'Gara. She runs a paid newsletter.
She sells a product for hundreds of dollars per year. And she uses what she
posts on Sys-Con to market that newsletter.

Thus, there is something of an arms-length relationship between O'Gara and
Sys-Con. I don't know how many other Sys-Con authors do this, but unless they've
changed their business model, there must be others.

Things may have changed since 2003. The market has improved for content. And
it's cheaper in the long run for companies to hire than to license.

But the only way to get O'Gara out of the business is to find her subscribers
and have them cancel their subscriptions.

Because she's really in business for herself.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Code of Ethics
Authored by: Nick_UK on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:10 PM EDT
In the UK here, some of the national press newspapers
sometimes print terrible stuff, all for the want of an
increased sale - sometimes it is truly appalling what is
published about people.

To me, in the destructive type of journalism, whether
there be a 'code of ethics' or not, it all goes out the
window anyway when the journalist/editor believes they
have a £winner.

'Freedom of speech' cry the news outlets...

...but until all these gutter rats _actually_ adopt an
ethical stance, this sort of journalism will always be.

A good start in all this would be the politicians to adopt
a 'code of ethics', and set an example.

Nick

[ Reply to This | # ]

The cause is obvious
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:12 PM EDT
Hi all,

I've been watching this for some time, and the cause of all of this hub-bub is
obvious to me.... money.

PJ, you've cost this bunch of people a LOT of money with what you've been
doing!

Sure, IBM has this covered from a legal standpoint. The research that's been
posted here has helped a lot too, but I'm sure that IBM would do whatever
necessary to protect themselves even without all this help. That's no slam on
the value of the help, just a statement that SCOX doensn't have a legal leg to
stand on and that IBM would do what's necessary to push them over....

As far as the money goes, I'm refering to, what I believe, is a stock swindle
operation running out of SCOX headquarters in Utah. Without your efforts, and
the efforts of others here, those folks might have
fooled/hoodwinked/swindled/snookered many many more investors out of money
before IBM put these guys down. I don't think it's important how the case comes
out (to Darl and assoc.) so much as how the stock comes out... They were
looking to cash in on the media hype / stock inflation before the case was
settled.

That's all I believe this is... a simple stock swindle on par with the goldmine
swindle presented here before.

Of course they're mad!... You un-masked them before they could get their PR
spin cranked up $100 a share... What's it now? Something like $3.50? How
many shares they trading a day???? They're done even before they go to court.
They no longer have any credible product and you've revealed their "Linux
lottery ticket" as simply an old receipt from the laundromat....worthless!


Don't take this personally because they really don't care about you good or bad,
it's all about the money... They're just looking for any way to keep you silent
and your best protection is to keep talking.... Even if they showed a real link
between you and Osama bin Laden (not that one exists, hypothetical), I don't
think that it would help their stock price now... No investor would touch them
with anything more than toilet paper. It's all over for them...

Good Luck,

DD

[ Reply to This | # ]

Why They Do It
Authored by: Carlo Graziani on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:21 PM EDT
I'm becoming more and more convinced that it is likely that "journalists" of the MOG/Lyons/DiDio school are incapable of understanding their ethical transgressions, let alone acknowledge them.

I believe this is likely because at some early stage they drank the "SCO will sue its way into Giga-$" Kool-Aid and bought substantial amounts of SCO stock, probably valued far higher than it is now, figuring they were getting in on the ground floor of something huge. As a result, they are now in the position that gives rise to the aphorism "It is difficult to make someone understand something, when their livelihood depends upon their not understanding it."

I like this theory because it explains their extroardinary and unprofessional behavior in terms of simple and common human motivation, without having to ascribe to them anomalous and monstrous character deformities -- just love of money.

I also like it because it suggests where the only justice is likely to come for in their case. When SCO Delenda Est, they will finally have to acknowledge that (a) their dreams of vast returns on their money are dead, and (b) their investment has dried up and blown away. That is likely to inflict a satisfactory amount of psychic pain on them.

Not being a totally vindictive person, I do hope that those shares are printed on soft and absorbent paper. I'd hate to see them not get any value at all for their money.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Ethics
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:31 PM EDT
What I found most remarkable about that O'Gara piece wasn't so much what it
contained, as what it didn't contain: any semblance of a point. One can imagine
a reporter getting into a dilemma where he's really got the goods on somebody,
but needs to publish unethical personal information to make the point. But that
was clearly not the case here -- there are no goods, and the personal info is
irrelavant. The juiciest tidbit was that the person she identifies as PJ lives
in some geographical proximity to IBM headquarters, as if that were evidence
that PJ is a paid shill of IBM. As lame as that was, it actually managed to go
downhill from there. She identified the religion of this person -- what are we
supposed to conclude from that? Religious people are kooks? So we are to
conclude that PJ is a clever devious paid shill, and in addition, a kook? Most
pathetically of all, it alleges that this person left town in a hurry,
insinuating that this is paranoid behavior, when anyone reading the article can
see that its existence is abundant justification for paranoia. And on top of
all this, you can't help noticing that all the personal information, the
addresses and phone numbers etc., has no bearing on anything.

I guess one can only conclude what others have already concluded, that the
article was just intimidation that she didn't even bother to disguise as news.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Ethics
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:33 PM EDT

PJ: All I ever did to Ms. O'Gara was point out errors in her articles.

PJ, I think you are grossly understating what you did. Why not try being a little more accurate in how you characterize things. From the 200505021223170 article alone, we have:

1. The dynamic duo. Maureen O'Gara and Daniel Wallace. What a couple.

2. Ms. O'Gara spouts ..., pretends ...

3. ... but as usual she doesn't say ...

4. She is, I gather, not concerned with ...

(1) is doesn't "point out an error." It ridicules

(2) "spouts" and "pretends" are both unnecessary embellishments which are derogatory.

(3) "as usual" make a generalization about O'Gara's character, over and above what is being discussed.

(4) ascribes motives to O'Gara, rather than just commenting on the content of what she says.

"All I ever did ... was point out errors" is far less than the whole story

[ Reply to This | # ]

The "N" word
Authored by: Observer on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:38 PM EDT
I think the entire "Nazi" episode is unfortunate. I agree that PJ is completely correct in her technical explanation of her use of the analogy (even without the note), and it effectively communicates the feelings she had when facing the apparently coordinated attacks from these other writers. Unfortunately, the moment the "N" word shows up in a sentence, the immediate reaction is emotional rather than rational or intellectual. The ensuing firestorm serves as an illustration of how it usually causes more grief and kickback than it's worth.

---
The Observer

[ Reply to This | # ]

dirversions
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:41 PM EDT
Nice job of diverting all of us from the task at hand.

Back to reality please.

wb

[ Reply to This | # ]

MOG probably should become religious.
Authored by: waltish on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:42 PM EDT
Yep! She ought to start Praying that nothing happens to the Old woman or to the
person she though may have been PJ.

Because If some nutter does get activated and somthing happens to either of the
women or the Boy as a result of said nutter reading that article, I am sure she
could be held criminaly accountable .

In fact I dont know why the police havent already been around to see MOG , Dont
you have privacy laws in America? ,Didnt she Break them?.

I dont know if it is Just an Issue of Ethics , I believe what MOG did is
criminal, "Reckless Endangerment" At the barest minimum.

w

---
To speak the truth plainly and without fear,Is powerfull.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Simile
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:50 PM EDT
Your simile would have been better if you had stayed in the Aminal Kingdom.

Look to Hyenas taking down a Lion. The form a circle around the Lion, Each
attack from the blindside taking a bite. Then Lion turns to protect from that
attack. Another attacks from the "new" blindside.

The Lion never gets a rest.

Matches to the your Simile nicely. And shows that Hyenas are smart.

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Simile - Authored by: sunnyfla on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 02:36 PM EDT
  • Simile - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 05:58 AM EDT
Lyons is a yellow journalist but he's not evil
Authored by: error27 on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 01:55 PM EDT
Lyons writes a lot of crap and often it's slanted and sometimes it's not
factually acurate but he's not evil.

He just likes to be a drama queen and play the devils advocate. It's the wrong
idea to be a journalist and try to put the devil's slant on things and it
probably violates some ethical guidelines but he doesn't really compare to
O'Gara.

Lyons has written positive peices as well as negative peices. He's a bit of a
troll to be honest. But he's not so bad.

MoG was clearly off the deep end with the insults and the stalking and the
frothing at the mouth. She's an angry bitter woman and no one really
understands why.

Didio is sloppy but I honestly think she means well. She's Ok.

Enderle has his own reasons for disliking IBM but he's not insane about it.
He's Ok.

[ Reply to This | # ]

MOG should be worried, VERY WORRIED...
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 02:13 PM EDT
PJ writes,

"But please tell me, what shall we say to the elderly woman, who is not a
public figure and has no involvement with the running of Groklaw at all (neither
of the individuals in the article have anything to do with running Groklaw), who
had her home address, with pictures of the house and one showing the number on
the mailbox, posted on the Internet for any criminal or loonie to find, thanks
to Miss O'Gara's failure to abide by the Code of Ethics? How do we make her
whole?"

Terrorizing PJ overlooked one little detail: PJ's extraordinary research skills,
her vast connecton to the legal system, and her capacity to fight back.

When PJ asks "... please tell me..." I suspect she already has a clue
as to the answer, and a modest army of por-bono lawyers who can't wait to
present the attack on a frail, helpless, elderly lady before a jury.

MOG is toast.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Is anyone else having problems accessing James Turner's blog with Konqueror?
Authored by: TAZ6416 on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 02:14 PM EDT
Been following the story for the last week and have tried accessing James's blog several times and I always get a blank page when trying to access it. On my machine Firefox is OK and IE6 (cough) works OK on my Tablet PC.

I'm running Konqueror 3.3.1-4.3.FC3 on Lorma Linux

Thanks,

Jonathan

Pal Mickey Does DLP

[ Reply to This | # ]

Ethics
Authored by: brooker on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 02:29 PM EDT
Bravo! Applause!Applause!Applause!Applause!Applause!

Grace under fire. Very nicely done, PJ!

It made me cry.

The "Dark Side" truly is made up of a wretched bunch of scurrying rats
and roaches.

brooker

[ Reply to This | # ]

A word of caution
Authored by: NemesisNL on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 02:38 PM EDT
It is easy to roll up the slevees and ready ourselves to condemn another
journalist. Make no mistake O'Gara deserved what she got. Now to this other
fellow. As far as I know not a word of his piece has been printed. We have some
indications it might become a somewhat, ahum, biased piece. We do not know,
however, if this is true. Yes we could say past behaviour indicates it will be.
I would urge everyone not to start any voodoo sessions involving chickens and
dolls untill we know what it actually is he wrote.

As far as I'm concerned he can say whatever he likes, freedom of speech and
stuff, as long as he himself does not cross the line of what is ethical. He can
say about Groklaw, PJ and anyone that has ever commented over here whatever he
likes. As long as he stays professional. He can even write about his own
opinions, it doesn't have to be a fact piece....as long as he stays within the
bounds of journalistic ethics.

My point is...let's not start a witch hunt before we actualy know what the man
has said, or in this case...written.

As you can see by the O'gara experience we have the power to hurt somebodies
carreer. I'd suggest this power should be handled respondibly and we remember
that with power, if you have ethics, comes responsibility.

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Be Careful PJ,
Authored by: Asynchronous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 03:52 PM EDT
Except for the dark side, as I call them.
It's very possible that "The Dark Side" might be a trademark owned by George Lucas... much the way MickeySoft owns "Windows." :)

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Some Perspective
Authored by: emmenjay on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 03:55 PM EDT
I think we're getting a little carried away here. (Commenters, no so much PJ).

1. The internet is mostly a place of free speech.
2. The internet is not really a place of truth.
try
- - - www.nswpp.org, www.president.ir or www.microsoft.com

Now Ms O'Gara clearly crossed a line by publishing home addresses and phone
numbers. That's not on.

However if Mr Lyons or other people want to publish pro SCOX, anti PJ articles,
well they're probably entitled to.

Let's not get over-excited about a bit of fluff and FUD.

We're all entitled to our opinion, even if our opinion is idiotic.

Relax, ignore the rubbish and enjoy the good stuff. Life's too short. :-)

MJ.

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Ethics
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 03:56 PM EDT
Well if Mr Turner thinks MOG's story was okay, I would expect him to quickly
publish his personal information on the web right away.

I hope his employer knows how he feels.

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Heard O'gara
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:15 PM EDT
I caught one of her webcasts and the one thing I remember is that her attitude
was that she was there and her version is right. That would be especially true
about anything relating to the 'nix's and about anything else on a computer.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Anonymity and Pam Jones
Authored by: TomWiles on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 06:05 PM EDT
For the life of me, there are only three things we need to know about Pamely
Jones.

1. That she opened up an entire arena for legal discourse which is new and very
creative.

2. Whether she reports accurately.

3. Whether she researches carefully.

As far as Groklaw is concerned, nothing else really matters.

Tom

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Ethics
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 08:10 PM EDT
Did it occur to anybody that the vast majority of "journalists" do not
live up to the standards? Like, Iraq for example.

Off topic I know, but journalism is dead. It's been dead for a while. O'Gara
is the mainstream.

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Fuat doeesn't seem very repentant.
Authored by: gnuadam on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 09:06 PM EDT

Here's an interview with Fuat Kircaali. He doesn't seem to be very sorry for all the fuss he caused, but does seem to regret that people took offense.

In it, he admits a few interesting things. First, he implies that he took an active part in deciding to publish it:

"The language of the story is in the typical style of Ms. O’Gara, generally entertaining and easy to read, and sometimes it could be regarded as offensive, depending on how you look at it. I decided to publish the article. It was published because it was an accurate news story."
So the buck stops with him.

He doesn't think it was wrong to have published it.

We ran a story entitled “Who is Pamela Jones?” The facts in the story were accurate. There was nothing in the story we thought factually, professionally, ethically or legally wrong. We publish more than 10,000 news stories per month on the SYS-CON.com Web sites. Maureen does not act directly on behalf of SYS-CON or anyone else. She is the owner of her own company, G2 Computer Intelligence. She is not a staff reporter of SYS-CON. We have been syndicating her LinuxGram newsletter for more than three years. You can read her original content at Linuxgram including the story which is in discussion here. We do not make decisions on behalf of Ms. O’Gara. I’m not her boss. She stands by her story, and if there is anything that I’m not qualified to answer, you can contact Maureen directly. I’m sure she will be more than happy to answer all your questions.

He doesn't feel that publishing home addresses and phone numbers is much of an issue, claiming, "Besides, talking about personal home numbers, you can find my home number listed in the white pages and my home address is listed there as well. If a reporter wants to call me up at home or in my office, they can look up my phone number and address and show up at my door and ring my bell. I will come out and take a picture with the reporter if he or she wants to take my picture. Any reporter is welcome to my home as well as my office. We are not anonymous or private when it relates to our professional lives." I hope he never has cause to question this naive belief.

All in all, it's a fascinating read. He makes a few good points. I note that the subject of O'Gara's future relationship with sys-con didn't come up in the interview. I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed the interviewer didn't ask about that.

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Fuat Kircaali explain it all away
Authored by: _Arthur on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 09:07 PM EDT
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/pills/
fuat_kircaali_interview/

This one is loaded with gems, guyz!
My favorite quote (about the Medico lock)
"Perhaps. We have an old saying. Keep your door locked and don’t accuse
your neighbor of being a thief."

Strange, did I dream, or didn't I read -- in his own magazine -- Maureen
O'Gara accuse PJ of "Identity Theft". Is it commonplance in his
magazines to
throw wild _criminal_ accusations, with no proof at all, only stay tuned, more
dirt to come.... ?

Enjoy. (please mod me up) +10

_Arthur

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Worst part is that SCO gets what they want
Authored by: SaveDrury on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 12:41 AM EDT
what is most bothersome (from a thousand foot view - and in no way am i
disparaging PJ or saying that she is overreacting.. far from it) is that SCO is

getting what they want out of Bitch OGara...

noise.

noise drowning out the fact that they have a 100% bullshit case, and are proving

that anyone with deep pockets can ruin someone using the courts if they choose
to, without any proof or evidence.

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The Ethics of Fuat Kircaali
Authored by: Rann on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 01:12 AM EDT
I do wish that they had tried to work with me to find a solution before the fanatics out there launched DoS attacks for days even after we pulled the story. Our Web sites remained under constant attack from Monday through Wednesday, for three days. We lost thousands of dollars in revenues during the past three days. We are trying to recover from the biggest cyber attack in history any media company was ever subject to.

Very odd indeed! When I tried to find the story on their websites, I had NO problem connecting.... just a problem finding where they buried it! "Constantly under attack"... NOT! Seems a rather odd definition of DDoS for the "biggest cyber attack in history"!!! Why do these idiots always fall back on the lame duck DoS to "prove" that they are right/picked on/whatever???

I see a lot of self righteous blarney .... an "I am the most important, biggest, (fill in blank) and what I say is more important." Amazingly, they don't confirm if the addresses are correct as PJ is never actually confirmed to live there.

Besides, why do I care where she lives, where her mother, son, or favourite pet lives? The question raised is WHO is Pamela Jones... not where in the world is PJ! Who means what type of person is she, not just a vague physical description, age, and posssible religious affiliation. If Maureen had found out why PJ was attracted to the law in the first place, how did she get into computers, Linux, and blogging... well you all can get the picture!

Kircaali, as well as MoG, can't answer the question asked. MoG can't even answer the question she herself posed!!! They dance around looking at their own reflections, thinking how wonderful they themselves are. Sometime they should both go to journalism school and find out about answering questions

Rann

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Ethics
Authored by: heretic on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 09:03 AM EDT

Yet another Slashdot story in this sorry mess. LinuxWorld Senior Editorial Staff Resigns

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Ethics
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 07:27 PM EDT
What was the point of MOG's original article. I have some thoughts.

1. If you leave the personal slurs and the publication of the personal data out
of it and read it from the mindset of someone who isn't really involved in the
whole SCO-IBM thing, but likes to keep up on the news, then it appears that
MOG's point is that it is highly unlikely that the huge enterprise that is
Groklaw could be the work of one paranoid older person of limited means whose
religion is supposed to be very time-consuming, and it is run by some shadow
organization that uses PJ as a front, either with or without her permission (the
identity theft angle). I'd expect the "to be continued" article to
point up the relationship between Groklaw/Ibiblio and Ibiblio/IBM (the
donations). I haven't seen any people pick up on this angle that this
"evidence" is meant to cast doubt on Groklaw being an independent
voice.

2. The inclusion of the personal information and personal slurs was most likely
intended as a "shot across the bow" intended to intimidate PJ. This
one was picked up by darn near everyone. Coming on the heels of the two Canopy
related "suicides", it becomes a very credible threat.

3. Another possibility (and these are not mutually exclusive) is that they
can't find PJ, the PI could not find where she actually is now. And they have
some need to do so, so what better way than to get PJ to come forward with legal
action? The question is, what burning need do they have to find PJ to take such
a desperate shot in the dark? Finding and hassling her mother and brother is
sufficient to let PJ feel threatened. I don't know about the rest of you, but
threatening my family members would be way more effective than threatening me.
Perhaps MOG and her handlers just don't have that kind of feeling for their own
family.

4. Then there is the fact that they may have needed a Wookie to distract
attention from the Vista reverse merger and the machinations there. I sincerely
hope that the Vista situation is under a microscope, and that nobody lets this
matter take priority over that.

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Ethics
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 16 2005 @ 12:04 AM EDT
I still believe that Groklaw could afford to be a good deal more introspective than it is.

What exactly is the point of "Groklaw" being introspective? Certainly a person may, or may not be, introspective - but a virtual community?

[ Reply to This | # ]

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