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to NetWorld! area | Feb. 18, 1996, Update of V Day Massacre Story By David H. Rothman Doonesbury is more in the style of the Washington
Post than the Yellow Kid should be. The great scandal-makers of
the 19th century, however, would have admired the front page of Feb. 14.
The L Street crowd gave the Internet a reverse Valentine in the most Hearstian
of ways--grotesquely slanting a legitimate news story that could have stood
on its own. We believers in the many-to-many Net model never had a chance.
To use Post-style hype, or at least the kind pumping up the story
by Todd Shields and Scott Bowles, it was a Valentine's Day Massacre. In messages to at least eleven newsgroups, a student at the University
of Maryland had claimed that a mother had abused a teenage daughter. The
student had not bothered to check his facts; he just may have committed
libel, and if nothing else, he had encouraged Netfolks to make nasty phone
calls to the family's house. Dramatically the article showed how the Net
in some cases might endanger privacy. But was it really necessary for the
Post to run "Over the Line On-Line: Family Put Under Siege"
at the top of the left column on Page A1? That in itself might have been
a matter of judgment, but then the Post article threw balance out
the window and kept trashing the Internet again and again--complete with
a front-page quote from the girl's father, who compared the Net to "a
virus. How do you stop it?" On and on the anti-Net panic went with nary a syllable about the value
of the many-to-many model. A sentence in the second graph set the tone
for the story and perhaps served as a friendly reminder to the White House
and Hill: "The incident spotlighted the potential for abuse of the
vast and unregulated Internet." Trying to reinforce this angle, the Post's gatekeepers rounded
up an expert who loved--surprise--gatekeepers. Dale Herbeck, an associate
communications professor at Boston College, bravely observed that he once
"had to have access to some kind of printing press. Some newspaper
or editor or correspondent would act as a gatekeeper." Herbeck wasn't
about to shut up. As chronicled by the Post's Keepers, he complained
of a lack of "editing function. It's maybe too spontaneous...You just
sit down and Boom! It's kind of wild! You type it out and hit Control-Z
and, Boom! It's out. And the traditional checks are gone.'" What was conveniently missing was the other side, the Net's potential
for whistleblowers--and for ordinary Americans to help themselves through
uncensored, many-to-many communications on topics ranging from motorcycles
to suicide-prevention. My wife has asthma and would feel lost without the
Net that the Post was so eager to trash. In a quote tucked away on on page A13, a Virginia Tech professor did
mention the possibility of someone sticking up anonymous signs on lamp
posts instead of using the Net. But in the context of the story, it wasn't
clear if he was saying, "You don't need the Net to smear your victims,"
or "See, the Net is one big evil Magic Marker to libel people with."
Just a few explicit paragraphs of The Other Side--look, I know The News
of the Day and am not asking for anything even remotely close to 50-50--would
have been nice to balance out the father's "virus" quote or such
gems as: "Unlike aspiring publishers of an earlier age, Internet publishers
do not need much money, a complex distribution network or others' approval
to send their ideas to thousands of readers. But, said Herbeck and others,
electronic messages carry the same ethical and legal baggage as printed
ones." The learned professor and the Post apparently had not heard of
a remarkable invention, the R button. Yes, libel exists online. But with
reply so readily available--either directly or through plugged-in friends--it
would be foolish to see the Net as just another version of paper. The Post reporters behind the Valentine's Day massacre just don't
understand the nuances, however, and I wonder if that isn't true, too,
of the key managers on L Street. Although the Grahams employ many smart,
Net-hip people, the old guard remains very much in charge--especially of
the opinion sections, where the focus is often more on the negatives of
technology than its promise. I've found the top editor of Outlook, for example, to be aggressively
indifferent to my TeleRead proposal for a national digital library in the
true Carnegie vein. Far better to run cute little features ridiculing the
Net--or think-tank articles with the standard jeremiads against high-tech.
It isn't just a question of the Post showing an unprofessional lack
of balance, the main concern here. It's plain bad business. Like the fossils
on Capitol Hill, some of the Grahams' key managers are doing a splendid
job of alienating Generation Net. However young or old--I myself am antique by online standards--many
people on the Net do appreciate some gatekeeping in places where they expect
it. I personally want a mix of the few-to-many and the many-to-many models.
I'm a newspaper junky regardless of the medium! But good online newspaper,
adding value to the Internet, are entirely apart from the unleavened, anti-Net
propaganda that the Post printed today as news. Furthermore, I see at least the appearance of a slight conflict of interest
arising from the Post's heavy investments in Digital Ink, a tightly
controlled proprietary service that it has marketed as an alternative to
the usual Net connections. And that isn't even to mention a multimillion-dollar
investment in something else, printing presses. Yes, I know the Post
is moving in the direction of a true Net newspaper, but you can bet that
we on the Internet will harbor some not-so-dear memories, just as we did
after Time inflicted Marty
Rimm on us. Mrs. Graham, this is going to cost you. I myself am not vindictive--I
don't hold the whole Post responsible for the net.ignorance of two
reporters and their editors--but others may not make the same distinctions. Alas, some deja vu is inescapable here. Within the past two years,
the Post ran a misleading story about porn online. Guess what Jim
Exon cited when he introduced his "decency" legislation. Now,
just when Washington has officially gutted the First Amendment in cyberspace,
along comes "Over the Line On-Line: Family Put Under Siege."
That this is a story is undeniable. So, however, is the Post's bias
on the front page and Page A13 of Feb. 14. Would you believe, presidents and congress members have been known to
read the Post and, gasp, even act on news articles they see there.
In fact, a single front page article in the stop-the-virus vein may balance
out dozens of more sensible items. What's next, onerous libel and slander
laws targeted at the Net, just as the "decency" legislation was?
Knowingly or not, the Post has expedited matters. Get set for Bill
Clinton to sign--oh, ever so reluctantly of course--the Online Libel Lawyers'
Full Employment Act. I've sent the above information to two fine Washington Post reporters
(innocent bystanders, both of them) with the hope that they'll circulate
this note far and wide within the Post. An electronic copy has also gone
to Assoc. Prof. Steven Sander Ross of the Columbia
School of Journalism. I've suggested that he nominate the Post
for a well-deserved "Dart" in The Columbia Journalism Review.
If some anti-First Amendment awards exist, the Post should
walk off with the honors for 1996. For all I know, Sen. Exon is reaching for his scissors this very second,
ready to save the Post clip for the time he makes another speech
in favor of censorship. Today's disgraceful episode may come back to haunt Digital Ink in the
meanest of ways. Will the Post please minimize the damage immediately
with the most official of corporate apologies on the editorial page--or,
better still, at the scene of the crime: Page A1? Again, the issue here
isn't the existence of the story per se. It's the yellow journalism. --David Rothman, rothman@clark.net,
Feb. 14, 1996 What should the Post do in the aftermath
of the February 14 debacle? Just what's happened since? And how can Netfolks
protest? No, I myself don't think L Street should fire Todd Shields and Scott
Bowles, whose bylines appeared over the front-page, anti-Net editorial.
As I see it, this is more of An Institutional Failing, and besides, we
aren't talking Janet Cooke territory. It isn't as if ShieldsBowles Cooked
up a young heroin addict. Just the same, I wouldn't mind if at least one
of this duo returned a phone message I left on an answering machine last
week. Among other things I'd like to find out if some hotshot on the Desk
undermined them. And just what would Shields and Bowles do differently if they were writing
the same material again? Would they make that extra call for a Net perspective.
I'm certain that John Schwartz or Elizabeth Corcoran--two Net-smart reporters
at the Post--could have given them a list of the usual suspects.
Shields and Bowles could have contacted Jerry
Berman of the Center for Democracy and
Technology, for example, or Mike
Godwin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
for The Other Side. Surely a few graphs of the TOS could have tainted a
story well over 30-column inches. As it turned out, the Post did get around to quoting Berman,
but not until the next day when the front of the Metro Section blared,
"Internet Message Prompts Call for a Student Code." Shields and
Bowles reported: "The American Association of State Colleges and Universities,
which represents 435 colleges and university systems, will recommend that
schools establish standards of conduct before giving students e-mail addresses
and Internet access, said Edward Elmendorf, the group's vice president
of government relations." That was news. But was it really necessary to delay Jerry Berman's appearance until
the last few paragraphs? Only then did the story say: "But other Internet
specialists argue that the global communications network is like television,
telephones or print: Each can be used for good or ill." And then came
a quote from Berman that the first story should have included to balance
out the Netphobia. Berman said the Net "community acted quite responsibly"
by mostly ignoring the request to phone the Maryland woman accused of abusing
her daughter. If a little late, the story at least alluded to "the
Internet's informal code of conduct." Berman and Godwin, of course, were hardly the only people capable of
confusing Post readers with the truth. Ironically Schwartz and Corcoran
themselves could probably have offered more perceptive quotes than the
title-awed Post collected in many instances. Yes, of course: the
paper couldn't quote its own; but why rely so heavily on quotes from academics?
The Post might have followed the example of National
Public Radio and have contacted Brock Meeks of Wired
and Cyberwire Dispatch.
Although clearly a lover of the Net, Meeks gave NPR a good, professional
summary of the pros and cons of the many-to-many model. I still wonder about the net.attitudes of some people the Post
actually quoted the first time around. Dale Herbeck, the Boston
College professor who had said in the Feb. 14 story that the Net was
"too spontaneous," didn't show up in Alta
Vista or DejaNews
with any recent Usenet postings. But lo and behold he did have a home
page even if it looked like a standard-issue one from the Communications
Department. Among his course
offerings? A Seminar
on Freedom of Expression. It promised "special emphasis on access,
commercial expression, hate speech, obscenity, violent pornography, and
new technologies." I myself would have liked to see such items as
"The Advantages and Disadvantages of the Many-to-Many Model";
but at least he was on the Net in some way beyond electronic mail
Update of March 17, 1996 | Quick Postscript of January 25, 1997 | Link Kill at the Post
The V Day Massacre: Biased Washington Post Story Attacks Many-to-Many Net Model
Update #1: The Post's Follow-Up Story, the Editorial, and How
You Can Help Educate L Street
Especially I was curious about Jeremy Cohen, an assistant dean of communications at Penn State, who, according to the Post, had warned that "unsubstantiated statements on the Internet could chip away at the medium's credibility 'until people look at it in the same light they look at tabloid magazines. No one will believe what they read, and that would be unfortunate, because it is an amazing tool.'" Hmm. Maybe somebody with such strong opinions would be deeply into the Net. Poking through a list of faculty phone numbers and links for the Penn State College of Communications, I did not find a link to a home page for Assistant Dean Cohen. And recent Usenet posts? Well, at least under "Jeremy near Cohen," nothing showed up on Alta Vista. Ditto for a search under the email addresses PSU listed. Maybe, however, Jeremy Cohen was more of one for mailing lists than Usenet. I e-mailed him last week to let him know about the little discussion on the online-news list--hoping that he would reply. No luck so far.
Last week I also tried to phone Assistant Dean Cohen. He wasn't in, but a Penn State staffer told me that ADC's school account did not have access to the Net beyond email; perhaps the Assistant Dean can tell us if that's that's true. What about home? The staffer didn't know if he'd installed a Web browser there or engaged in other rocket science. So I and the others on the on-line news list remain in suspense.
If Assistant Dean Cohen is himself a list creature, that actually might undermine his "tabloid magazine" comparison. The point is, there's no Internet Central with a reputation to be tarnished. If people get disgusted with one of the thousands of Usenet newsgroups, for instance, they can just try another--or focus their attention on mailing lists, which often have better qualified people and nicer signal-to-noise ratios than newsgroups do.
For several days I wondered about the S/N in another medium--on Post editorial page. On Saturday, Feb. 17, the paper editorialized against the Net's ability to "magnify what would otherwise be run-of-the-mill irresponsible behavior." But in my opinion, the editorial did more good than harm. Key sentence: "Recent legislation notwithstanding, in our view only speech that is defined as criminally or civilly liable action in the outside world--stalking, for instance--should be punished in the same way as in that outside world." Fine!
The Post did go on to say: "Despite the utopian predictions of cyberspace enthusiastis--e-mail would erase hierarchies in companies, eliminate governmental censorship and so forth--it's beginning to be clear that online society won't look all that different from the one we live in when you're not looking at the screen." I'm not sure about the above; the medium will influence the content at least somewhat. Still, all in all, the Post has repaired a little of the damage from the original story of Feb. 14.
Why, though, hasn't L Street admitted how biased the story was. I don't want to see Exon citing the Post from the Senate floor as he did when he used a misleading cyberporn piece while introducing the CDA. If nothing else, keep in mind the difference between the front page and the editorial page in terms of readership and impact. I hope that a true "clarification" or apology will be coming soon if the editors value the newspaper's credibility here in cyberspace. We go back to the quote from Assistant Dean Cohen. Let's just substitute "Post" for "Net" and warn that otherwise "No one will believe what they read, and that would be unfortunate...."
What can you do? Here are some suggestions:
Do, however, speak up if you're inclined. With luck you can match the wonderful critique that Dan Burk, an assistant law professor at Seton Hall University, offered of the original article: "Suppose someone wrote these people's telephone numbers on the men's room wall, and they started getting obnoxious calls--would the Post run a story about the need to clamp down on the 'vast unregulated tiles of America's comfort stations'? Good grief."
--David Rothman, rothman@clark.net, Feb. 18, 1996
The Washington Post ran a good column from ombudsman Geneva Overholser March 17, following the anti-Net article that the Post printed on the front page on Valentine's Day.
In a key sentence in the St. Patty's Day piece, she wrote: "Amid pressure to regulate the Internet, on-line enthusiasts find stories like the article on Feb. 14 not only unfair because of their lack of balance, but dangerous--and they wrote and called to say so."
Though she didn't express herself in the most direct way, I'll assume Ms. Overholser agreed with the "enthusiasts."
I, in turn, would go along with a key conclusion from her: "'Net enthusiasts who think faulty stories result from a plot by the press to bring them down should understand that we're far too disorganized for that." Of course I also think there is no need for a plot. Technophobia and old-fashioned sensationalism often take care of that. Just the same, the column was a great step in the right direction; thanks to Ms. Overholser for spending the time to examine the facts here, and for communicating with me on this matter.
Now I'm waiting for a "clarification" from the Post news side itself, over which Ms. Overholder has no control. I'll let folks know if that happens. An appropriate "clarification" on Page 3, speaking officially for the news side, not just her, would read something like this:
On Feb. 14 the Post ran a front-page news story with many quotes critical of the Internet for being unedited. Nowhere did the long article offer an explicit quote giving another perspective. Many experts believe that an unedited Net can be especially effective as a forum for free political expression and for electronic self-help groups. Without taking sides here, the editors of the Post believe that the Feb. 14 news story should have been much more balanced in line with the traditional policy for news stories.
In fairness to the Post, may I remind people that cyberphobia is hardly unique to some L Streeters. Especially I'm thinking of an error-ridden, pro-censorship column that the rival Washington Times published on Feb. 21. It made the original Post attack read like a press release.
Headlined "Through the Global Sewer," the Feb. 21 piece in the Times was based on contributor Philip Terzian's "brief perusal" of the Net. In part Terzian wrote:
If you consider the distinguishing features of the Internet--no rules, secrecy, mass access, anonymity--you have the ingredients for the lowest common standards. Indeed, a brief perusal of the world of cyberspace can be nearly as startling as impressive, in its way: The pervasion of pornography, conspiracy theories, rhetorical abuse, perversions and obsessions; the sheer amount of junk, of tedium, fixations, of furtive desires and blatant exhibitions. Mixed in with the occasional useful statistic about the balance of trade, or news of movies, TV and videos, may be found the sort of elevating topics and dialogues you tend to overhear in the bus station men's room.
The above is yet another indication that we should take time off from reading the Net to see and hear what the media are saying. The goal here shouldn't be to squelch bad news--we can hardly warn against censorship and get in the way of the press doing its job!--but rather to work toward balanced coverage. I was delighted to find several letters to the Times editor refuting Terzian. Good! Keep in mind that one anti-Net article leads to another.
Significantly Terzian's diatribe picked up material from the Post's anti-Valentine to the Net--a quote comparing hearsay on the Net to a "virus. How do you stop it?" I wouldn't be surprised if a powerful politician followed.
That is why I won't be happy until the Post "clarifies" the V-Day article in the most official way--so that if the piece shows up in the Congressional Record, it will do minimal harm to the cause of free expression on the Net.
--David Rothman, rothman@clark.net,
March 17, 1996Update #2: Post Ombudsman Writes Clueful Column on Anti-Net Story--But No "Clarification" Comes from the News Side
