Disclosure doesn’t cut it

Being a tech nerd, I came across this story that piqued my interest because it seems to address the nature of how much you can trust what you read in a reputable media publication. You can read the backstory for yourself, but for those that don’t have time, the short story is that Cnet, a reputable tech publication online published a list of the ten best products of the recent Consumer Electronics Show that included DishHopper. The product, while probably neat, isn’t important, but what’s important is that this product’s creator is being sued by CBS who insisted that Cnet remove that mention of DishHopper. CBS can do that because as owners of Cnet, they have the right to do so. It became a story because a few staff members left Cnet in a public huff.

The words from the opinion piece are a restatement of the core of this site:  Continue reading

Open Records now has serious pushback

Visitors who poke around the pages here will know that I’m for transparency, that is opening a window into the U.S. news media that writes news stories about us and our business. So as this story develops, I’ve got to share some insight into how the Journal News in White Plains, New York not only felt there was news interest in finding out how pervasive the number of legal handgun owners were in their two-county area, but also in the pushback as a blogger published the names and home addresses of the employees of the Gannett-owned property.

Now the next shoe has dropped as I expected they would and the management felt that they had to protect their employees at work from unknown elements. Continue reading