Ok, I'll ask the obvious question. Why is this "abhorrent"? Is it also "abhorrent" that Sarah Lacy and others at Pando report on the personal life of Uber and other tech execs?
Sorry, but can you point me to the place where Sarah Lacy and Pando investigated the "personal life of Uber"? I can't speak for all the other things in that Pando article you link to, but when I read the snippet about Uber, I see something about how the Uber's CEO bragged about "Boober" and I see that that brag was derived from a public interview that the CEO gave GQ:
So are you equating ripping on a public interview with GQ Magazine with this allegation by Buzzfeed? -
> Then he returned to the opposition research plan. Uber’s dirt-diggers, Michael said, could expose Lacy. They could, in particular, prove a particular and very specific claim about her personal life.
I linked to Sarah Lacy reporting on Evan Spiegel's private life. Why is it acceptable to expose his private emails, but not Sarah Lacy's private life?
If the opposition researchers dug up unpleasant things Sarah Lacy said publicly (but are now forgotten), would that be acceptable to you? (This is normally a big part of what such researchers do.)
Like I said, I don't know much off the top of my head about all the other things Pando could have possibly reported on, but to humor you, I looked up the stuff about Evan Spiegel.
So to answer your question, no, I would not have an issue with researchers digging up things that Sarah Lacy has said publicly, especially if they pertain to the quality and integrity of her reporting. So I guess we're left to interpret whether her journalistic credentials is what BuzzFeed is claiming to be targeted here:
> They could, in particular, prove a particular and very specific claim about her personal life
And the last graf of BuzzFeed's piece doesn't entice us to give Uber's exec the benefit of the doubt:
> At the Waverly Inn dinner, it was suggested that a plan like the one Michael floated could become a problem for Uber. Michael responded: “Nobody would know it was us.”
I've worked in investigative journalism for a few years and have worked on projects that dug up things about people. But never have my colleagues nor I did such work under surreptitious means. We made our identities clear during the reporting, and we printed our findings and allegations under our own names, and we took the criticism that came toward us. As far as I can tell, Lacy operates under the same rules of the game. So again, I ask, where do you see the fair turnabout between what Lacy does as a journalist and what BuzzFeed reports to have heard from the dinner?
So I guess we're left to interpret whether her journalistic credentials is what BuzzFeed is claiming to be targeted here: ...a particular and very specific claim about her personal life
Seems analogous to Evan Spiegel's private emails about his frat bro's sex life.
If you are opposed to anonymity, I take it you would similarly complain if a woman anonymously blogged about douchey behavior at a tech company? Much like Michael, she'd be truthfully reporting facts about another person but hiding her identity to avoid a backlash.
[edit: the reason I interpreted the lack of anonymity as being the source of "abhorrence": ...never have my colleagues nor I did such work under surreptitious means. We made our identities clear... ]
Sorry, but why do you think I have something against anonymity? I'm sure you're aware of various investigative stories that have involved anonymous whistleblowers. Are you seriously equating an anonymous gadfly with a company conspiring to secretly ruin a public critic's life?
What's funny to me is that I've just come back from an event at Stanford where Barton Gellman, the Pulitzer-winning journalist who reported on Snowden and the NSA for the Washington Post, was asked if he ever felt threatened subsequent to his reporting on PRISM and the rest of the Snowden leaks. Gellman says no, he's never felt threatened. Certainly, he's worried about surveillance because he's still in communication with Snowden, and it is clearly in the NSA's best interest to know what Snowden is saying, and to someday intercept and stop him...and of course, the NSA and the White House has objected quite angrily (but publicly) to Gellman's work. But apparently, the NSA is at least professional enough to know that a line would be crossed if they messed with Gellman's life.
And now here I am, on HN, having a quasi-serious debate with someone who thinks no biggie if Uber would retaliate against someone like Lacy, even though Lacy's reporting is far less hard-hitting and substantial than what Gellman has done to the NSA.
Are you seriously equating an anonymous gadfly with a company conspiring to secretly ruin a public critic's life?
I'm trying to determine whether the action itself is "abhorrent" or whether it's only "abhorrent" because the person who discussed it is a tech dudebro that everyone loves to hate.
At this point I'm leaning very strongly toward the latter.
I thought you had something against anonymity because "...never have my colleagues nor I did such work under surreptitious means. We made our identities clear...". If that was merely a red herring, my apologies. I thought you brought it up because you believed it was relevant, and perhaps the source of Michael's actions being "abhorrent".
Hmmm, yeah, I guess I'm not communicating very clearly here. In my worldview, actions should be judged along with the circumstances that led to the actions.
For example, a human-wielded knife slashing across a human body to cause a bloody and gruesome wound. I consider that action relatively neutral without knowing more of the context.
If the knife is being wielded by a mugger during an attempted robbery, then I consider it to be an unpleasant action.
If the knife is being wielded by a doctor in an attempted c-section, I consider it to be a less unpleasant action, perhaps, even a justified and positive action.
I mean Jesus Christ, do you really enter into these discussions with an objectivity that can't conceive of how events and actions can have different values depending on the given circumstances?
I'm not sure if you really don't understand or are just arguing to be provocative, but I'll play along to make the point.
It's morally equivalent to saying that you would fund a smear campaign against a judge or juror that ruled against you. It's one small step from making threats of physical violence to silence negative reporting.
The press is considered an independent 3rd party bystander that is a crucial underpinning of any functioning democracy. Making aggressive threats against the press threatens the roots of civilized society, and is "abhorrent" because it's a tactic used by nearly every oppressive/fascist regime.
Are journalists who dig up dirt without making threats a "small step" from people who use violence against people without making threats first?
There is a core difference between threats of violence (such as what is done by oppressive regimes) and threats of telling the truth. And it's a bit silly to call Pando and Sarah Lacy an "independent 3rd party bystander". The entire enterprise is an extremely opinionated anti-tech enterprise - kind of like what the Uber execs proposed building, just with a slightly different target.
It sounds like you are saying the people who call themselves independent media deserve special privileges that the rest of us don't get. Is that correct?
Sarah Lacy would be skewered by the public if she said her goal was digging up dirt against a specific individual.
Similarly, she'd probably catch some negative press if she made questionable statements in a GQ article.
So no, she doesn't get special privileges.
If Uber wants to open a newspaper to advance their political agenda, they at least have to go through the pretense of reporting on everything, a la Rupert Murdoch.
So the act of digging up dirt is acceptable. It's only doing it in a targeted manner, rather than opportunistically, that's the problem.
I'm sure she might catch negative press - lots of harmless behavior creates negative press. I'm not asking how to manage the media, I have no interest in being a PR flack. I'm asking whether reporting on her questionable statements (the sort of thing opposition researchers do) would be "abhorrent".
Similarly, would exposing and reporting on her personal emails and other parts of her private life (as Pando has done to Evan Spiegel) be "abhorrent"?
To start, the Uber exec was suggesting that they do their dirt-digging anonymously ("Nobody would know it was us.").
Also, those articles you linked to are examples of journalists providing commentary around direct quotes or facts/reports about the company. AFAIK, Sarah Lacy didn't dig up and expose personal information about people at Uber nor their families.
Because freedom of the press is a Big Deal to many Americans, and attacking members of the media personally is a time-honored and effective way to reduce that freedom.
Because there is a big gradient in power between the executives of a multi-billion-dollar venture-backed global company (Uber), and the editor of a small tech news site (Pando). People don't generally like giant companies using their considerable power for personal vendettas.
Because when the knock against Uber is that it's over-aggressive and not sensitive to women, this is the sort of story that seems to strongly confirm that knock.
Who says it isn't? I have read not a single iota of "Sarah Lacy is pure as the driven snow, this story about Uber taking revenge on the media proves it." I think a better question from your standpoint is not zero-sum, but "do they both suck?"
http://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-mo...
http://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-bi...
tl;dr; Why isn't turnabout fair play?