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Posts Tagged ‘journalism’

Being listed in the top 200 technology blogs

Posted in Blogging, Bruce Byfield, Free Software, freesoftware, journalism, open source, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 10, 2008| 1 Comment »

Much to my bemusement, I see that James Maguire has listed this blog as one of the top 200 technology blogs, in the GNU/Linux/ Free and Open Source category.

James is my editor at Datamation, who shows amazing toleration for my inability to edit my own work, so I already know him for a decent sort. So, I figure he just needed to round out the spaces he had allotted for the category. Not that I don’t appreciate the honor, but I can see myself clearly enough to know that I don’t deserve it.

For one thing, look at the company I’m keeping. My entries here certainly aren’t a match for the varied articles at Linux.com, which is also on the list. Nor do they come close to the combination of astute legal analysis and wonky opinion on Groklaw. As for equating my efforts here with the industry analysis in the blogs of Mark Shuttleworth, Jim Zemlin, or Matt Assay – no way, man, as we used to say in my increasingly distant youth. I mean, I didn’t call this blog “Off the Wall” at random, you know what I mean?

What is really ironic is that, when I started this blog, I intended it as a place where I could write about things other than free and open source software. At the very most, it would be a sandbox for ideas that weren’t ready to be articles, or ones that I didn’t think I could sell. Nor do I often write on such topics, although I have plenty to say about my life as a journalist who covers such topics.

Yet, if I’m being honest, I have to admit that, when I do cover free and open source topics directly, the posts attract an entire order of magnitude more readers than my other topics. And I mean that literally, without any exaggeration whatsoever. So, maybe James is right, and this is a technology blog after all.

Anyway, I was taught that, if someone pays you a compliment, you say thanks and smile warmly – especially if the compliment isn’t true. So, that’s exactly what I’m going to do, figuratively speaking.

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Mainstream journalists and the fear of blogging

Posted in Blogging, Bruce Byfield, Christie Blatchford, journalism, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , on September 6, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Why are mainstream journalists so threatened by blogging? The question is starting to nag me, because the response is so widespread – and based, I believe, on some key misunderstandings.

The strongest recent expression of mainstream journalists’ discomfort is from Christie Blatchford of The Globe and Mail. A few weeks ago, she used her report from the Olympic Games as an attack on blogging. Blogging, she says, is “the unofficial end to journalism as I know it.” Claiming that she is not complaining just because she is a Luddite, she says that she objects to blogging because she only has so many stories in her, and she doesn’t want to fritter them away. More importantly, she feels that blogging will diminish the craft of journalism, because blog entries and reader comments open up an unfiltered conversation.

I have a certain amount of sympathy for Blatchford’s view. Frankly, I find many people who are famous for blogging a pretentious waste of time. However, the term “blogging” covers so many different types of writing – everything from a teenager’s angst-ridden diary of her love life to columns by both semi-professional and professional journalists – that I can’t accept her catch-all condemnation. So far as I can see, when Blatchford talks about blogging, she is referring to any sort of writing published online.

In other words, when she says it’s not just because she’s a Luddite, I have the feeling that, yes, it is because she is a Luddite. She sounds worried that the ability to write something publishable is debased by the Internet, but, mostly, what I hear in her complaints is the cry of the middle-aged, bemoaning the fact that the world has changed.

Mostly, I find her fears groundless. Yes, online-publication – whether you call the result a blog, a column, or an article – is now open to everyone. However, the ability to write a piece that someone will pay to publish remains the dividing line between the professional and the amateur. Expertise – to say nothing of the ability to make deadlines — still matters, and, so far as I can see, always will.

The fact is, writing remains writing, regardless of the medium. The ability to choose worthwhile topics, to research and express them, are not diminished by the Internet. They are still rare skills that people respect and will pay for accordingly. If anything, suck skills stand out all the more in the new tidal waves of illiterate and self-indulgent prose.

As the old signature tag used to say, it was once thought that an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters would eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know that isn’t true.

Admittedly, the ease with which readers respond online does create a new relationship with writers. And this relation is scary, and takes some getting used to, because readers assume an absolute egalitariansm with the writer, and do not automatically respect the writer. A professional online writer has to learn the give and take of such a relationship, and learn when – and when not to – take its demands seriously.

Much more so that the traditional print journalist, the online writer has to develop careful filters for reader commentary, knowing that much of it is worthless and that conflicting opinions often cancel each other out, yet remaining open to the small percentage of valid criticism. They have to learn not to take abuse seriously, nor praise either. Online writers also need to budget their time, to ensure that they do not lose too much time in endless debates with readers (my personal rule is to respond no more than twice to any except in exceptional circumstances).

But, if all the increased commentary gets irksome at times, online writers can at least take comfort in the fact that people are reading. They may be misunderstanding, taking thoughts out of context, and using your ideas as a starting point for their own rants, but they are reading. And, in the case of online publications, the audience can consist of millions rather than the tens of thousands for traditional journalists – figures that any writer is sure to appreciate.

I am equally dubious about Blatchford’s concern about running out of stories. Journalists don’t concoct stories out of pure imagination; they respond to the events on their beat. In my experience, the problem is not finding a topic, but deciding which one most deserves coverage or is most interesting to you or your readers. And deadlines, I find, are a marvelous antidote for writer’s block. Would Blatchford, I wonder, have the same concern about the number of columns she has left in her?

However, Blatchford has been a professional journalist much longer than I have, so I can’t completely discount the possibility that I won’t have the same concern when I have her experience.

Apparently, I am on the other side of the digital divided from Blatchford, even though I am probably not that far from her age. My own journalistic career is almost entirely online, except for a handful of print articles each year, and the conditions that Blatchford seems to fear are simply normal working conditions to me. But it seems to me that the worries of Blatchford and other traditional journalists are nothing more than a fear of change, and mostly groundless. Change happens, but most of it is far less revolutionary than the claims of its supporters.

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Keeping the old game alive

Posted in Bruce Byfield, journalism, Personal, politics, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 2, 2008| Leave a Comment »

“Keeping the old game alive” is the name of a chapter in Gwynne Dyer’s book War. In the chapter, Dyer discusses those who, in this age of mass destruction, are responsible for old-fashioned military interests like the infantry. I’m not sure whether Dyer intended the title to be sarcastic, but for me it has always suggested that the effort was futile and irrelevant, and that those involved in it were in denial of this fact. However, that is the implication that I’ve meant as I’ve started to apply the phrase to all sorts of other situations.

For example: Traditional newspapers are concerned that the Internet has overtaken them and eroded their reader bases. However, instead of analyzing their practices or considering how they might make themselves more appealing to readers, many journalists and newspaper managers take refuge in pride. They may not be as quick off the mark as online journalists, they say, but they provide deeper, more thoughtful analysis. They are better trained than online journalists, and somehow more legitimate.
Behind the scenes, they may be frantically trying to imitate online news (something they can never altogether manage to do), but the image they present to the world is that of the respected Fifth Estate, the spiritual heirs of Ed Murrow or Joseph Addison. In other words, they have retreated part way into fantasy, pretending that nothing has changed since the heyday of the newspaper and they are still leading figures, keeping the old game alive by being in strenuous denial.

Similarly, voter apathy seems at an all-time high in Canada. Participation in elections has plummeted to 55% or less, where it was 20-30% higher less than two decades ago. Even a new party such as the Greens is unable to interest many people, even among the young, who are the most disaffected. Other parties remain within a few percentage points of where they were at the last election, apparently because nobody is following political events closely enough to react – or, perhaps, because people consider all politicians from any party to be interchangeably corrupt.

A sane reaction to this situation would be to change the way you do politics. Some forthrightness, a principled stand, maybe a cause or two might all work wonders, assuming they were genuine and consistent.

But instead, all the Canadian parties prefer to keep the old game alive, attacking each with ritual savagery in Parliament and accusing each other of chicanery as if they still have the support of the electorate. Politics becomes a formal ritual, in much the same way that a verbal war with people swearing and shouting at each other in the House of Commons becomes officially recorded as “Some Honorable Members: Oh, oh!” And, in this case, the more artificial that elected politicians’ behavior becomes, the more disenchanted the public becomes, and the fewer people are watching the government and opposition to help to keep the corruption down.

Really, keeping the old game alive is a form of double-think – the holding of two contrary ideas at the same time. On some level, those who keep the old game alive are very aware that the importance of what they are doing is decreasing. They may even discuss the problem and suggest solutions for it. But, at the same time, their behavior is a denial that any such problem exists.

That, no doubt, is why they often sound so hysterical as they play the old game. The contradiction in their attitudes is easy to detect, and they have to insist that nothing has changed in order to go on at all.

It all seems a lot of effort to me compared to looking for solutions. Yet I suppose that, in some ways, keeping the old game alive is more comforting, contradictions and all, than seeing the world for what it is – especially if you’re middle-aged and realizing that the standards that existed when you were in your twenties no longer apply.

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Living with journalistic enemies

Posted in Bruce Byfield, enemies, Free Software, freesoftware, journalism, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 30, 2008| Leave a Comment »

When I was a boy, I imagined that one day I might become so skilled as a writer that I would silence all the critics. I was very young, and, of course naive. But I can’t help remembering that dream now that I am a writer and have made some permanent enemies as a result of my modest success.

Even now, I’m close enough to the dreaming boy whom I once was that the word “enemy” sounds melodramatic, even paranoid. Yet what other word can I apply to people who imagine that I am always writing about them, and who spend an inordinate amount of time not only bad-mouthing me, but writing abusive posts and emails to repudiate my opinions? “Critic” or “detractor” might do, but neither word suggests the fury or the personal rancor of these people. So I suppose “enemy” will have to do.

Still, no matter what word I use, the idea of having enemies bemuses me. I seem to be such a poor hater that I have trouble imagining dislike in others. And, to be honest, when I first became aware of the fact, I was taken by surprise. Until about a year ago, I had had a gentle reception as a journalist. Very little of the attacks that other free software journalists have endured had come my way, and never from steady, identifiable sources. So I hardly knew how to react to the situation.

However, over the last six months, I’ve developed a habit of ignoring them. I won’t mention them by name in public, nor respond to their comments. In fact, I very rarely read anything they write, regardless of whether it’s about me or not; with all the intelligent and informative material about free software on the web, why should I waste my time? Most of what I hear about them comes in passing second hand references, or from reading a link on a portal site.

Yet, almost despite myself, I can’t help learning a little about my enemies. For example, I can’t help noticing that none of them seem to be contributors to any free software projects. Moreover, the other people whom they attack (my enemies being very far from discriminating) are among the leaders of the community, and hard workers as well, even if I often don’t share their opinions or think their energies misplaced. So, while I would rather not be among those my enemies focus upon, I suppose their attention is a wry compliment to my articles. After all, if I was completely unsuccessful in expressing myself or providing unusual or thoughtful arguments, then they probably wouldn’t bother with me.

But, even more importantly, when I do come across the writing of my enemies – regardless of whether it’s about me or some other straw man of the day – I’m starting to find that they help define me in a negative way. Just as, in the 1970s being on Richard Nixon’s enemy list was a sign that you were an effective social activist, so being a target of these kinds of people helps me to define the sort of person and writer that I want to be – in essence, everything that is the opposite of them.

For starters, I have no wish for prolonged flame wars. I might toss off an angry reply, or even a second one, but, after that, I can’t sustain the emotion. There are so many more interesting ways to spend my time that I quickly lose interest.

For another, while most of my writing about free software is advocacy journalism in the sense that, by choosing my specialty, I am implying that the subject is worthy of attention, I have no interest in attack journalism (I suppose that comes from getting enough sleep and not being wired on coffee all the time). I can disagree with a person or a corporate policy very well without any need to denounce explicitly. In the end, I would much rather stand for something than against something.

Anyway, if I present the facts accurately enough, I don’t need to condemn – if someone or something is unpleasant, the fact will come through without me belaboring the point.

Even more importantly, while I wince at typos and factual errors, taking them as proof of my own carelessness, I am far more concerned about logical errors. I don’t believe that, just because you find a tenuous connection to Microsoft that you have proved a conspiracy, or that simply because one event follows another that the first caused the second. I try very hard to keep an open mind as I research a story, which is why I usually can’t say the perspective I am taking until shortly before I start to write. I believe that quotes and other evidence needs to be taken in context, not jammed anywhichway into my existing beliefs as if I were some remote descendant of Procrustes. You don’t arrive at the truth by over-simplification or jumping to conclusions; you get there by acknowledging as much of the complexity as you possibly can.

But perhaps the biggest difference between my enemies and me is that I don’t think that my writing is all about me. When I sit down to write, my goal is cover the topic thoroughly, and support any opinions I state so that they are plausible to a fair-minded person. However, I rarely write to justify myself when I’m reporting on free software, nor do I expect everyone to agree with me. In fact, those who disagree with me often force me into a more nuanced and therefore more accurate view of the subject. In the end, my goal is to send off a finished article with what Balzac called “clean hands and composure” — by which I mean the knowledge that, given my material and time restraints, I have done the best job of expressing my point that I could.

Sometimes, I wish my enemies would find another target and leave me alone. Increasingly, though, I find myself accepting the fact that they are not going away in a hurry, even thinking that they are useful to me. For all the annoyance they provoke, they are examples of the sort of person and writer that I do not wish to be. So long as I act in the exact opposite way that they do, I can continue to be a person with whom I can live.

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My current thinking about free software journalism

Posted in advocacy, Blogging, Bruce Byfield, communications, Free Software, freesoftware, journalism, KDE, Linux.com, open source, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 14, 2008| 1 Comment »

In the last few days, I’ve had several experiences that make me think about my role as a journalist in the free and open source software community:

The first was a reaction I had from someone I requested some answers from. Although I thought I was being polite, what I got back was an attack: “I am not prepared to answer any of these questions at this time. The intent of your article is to feed the flames and I will have no part in that. The fact that people like you like to stir up controversy is to be expected, since that is the job of any writer trying to get readers.”

This reply not only seemed presumptuously prescient, since I hadn’t written the article, or even decided what angle it would take, but also unjustifiably venomous, given that I didn’t know the person. Moreover, although I am in some ways a contrarian, in that I believe that questioning the accepted wisdom is always a useful exercise, when I write, I am far more interested in learning enough to come to a supported conclusion or to cover an interesting subject than I am in stirring up controversy for its own sake. The fact that an editor believes that a topic will get a lot of page hits is meaningful to me mainly because the belief sets me loose to write a story that interests me.

Still, I don’t blame my correspondent. He probably had his reasons for his outburst, even though they didn’t have much to do with me. But the fact that someone could react that way says some unpleasant things about some current practioners of free software journalism — things that alarm me.

Another was the discovery of the Linux Hater’s Blog (no, I won’t link to it and give it easy page hits; if you want to find it, do the work yourself). I don’t think I’ve ever come across a more mean-spirited and needlessly vicious blog, and I hope I never do. However, recently as I’ve been preparing stories, I’ve come across some commenters on individual mailing lists who were equally abusive. They are all examples, not only of what I never want my work to be, but the sort of writing that makes me scrutinize my own work to ensure that it doesn’t resemble them in anyway whatsoever.

Journalism that stirs up hate or encourages paranoia — or even journalism whose focus is sensationalism — is journalism played with the net down, and I’m not interested in it. Oh, I might make the occasional crack, being only human, or use the time-honoured tactic of saying something outrageous then qualifying it into a more reasonable statement. But, mostly, I prefer to work for my page hits.

Such sites also suggest that the line between blogging and journalism is sometimes being blurred in ways that aren’t very complimentary to bloggers. While some bloggers can deliver professional commentary, and do it faster than traditional media, others seem to be bringing a new level of nihilism to journalism.

A third is the unexpected death of Joe Barr, my colleague at Linux.com. Joe, better known as warthawg or MtJB (“Mister the Joe Bar,” a story he liked to tell against himself) encouraged me with his kindness when I was first becoming a full-time journalist. Later, when I started writing commentaries, his editorials were an indicator for me of what could be done in that genre. As I adjust to the idea that Joe isn’t around any more, I’m also thinking about how I’ve developed over the last few years.

The final link was a long interview – almost twice my normal time – with Aaron Seigo, one of the best-known figures in the KDE desktop project. One of the many twists and turns in our conversation was the role of journalism in free and open source software (FOSS). As Seigo sees things, FOSS journalists are advocate journalists, acting as intermediaries between FOSS projects and the larger community of users. He wasn’t suggesting that FOSS journalists are fan-boys, loyally supporting the Cause and suppressing doubts; nothing in his comments suggested that. But he was pointing out that FOSS journalists are an essential part of the community. In fact, much of what he said echoed my own half-formed sentiments.

Seigo also discussed how a small number of people making a lot of noise can easily deceive journalists who are trying to be fair and balanced by making the journalists think that the noisily-expressed beliefs are held by more people than they actually are. As he points out, the American Right has been very successful in this tactic, especially through talk-radio. He worried that part of the recent user revolt against KDE 4 might be due to something similar.

Listening to him, I tried to decide if I had fallen for this ploy in the past. I decided that I might have been, although usually I try not just to be thorough, but also analytical enough to sift down to the truth.

I was going to try to summarize what I had learned from these four separate experiences, but my efforts to do so only sounded sententious – to say nothing of self-important and over-simplified. But I’m thought of all four as I’ve exercised recently, and I’ll be thinking of them for some time to come, too.

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Quoting and the craft of interviewing

Posted in Bruce Byfield, journalism, Personal, quoting, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , on June 24, 2008| Leave a Comment »

“I don’t think I have ever been quoted as well by a reporter before.”

I like to think that I’m immune to compliments but this comment from someone I interviewed earlier this week got through my defenses. I interpret it as saying that I reported what the person said accurately.

Or, to be exact, my reworking of what the person said was a close reflection of their thoughts. Because, of course, no journalist quotes an interview subject word for word – unless, that is, they want to portray the subject as a incoherent half-wit. If you have transcribed as many interviews as I have, you’ll know that even the most fluent speaker can be made to look rambling and dull by quoting every little pause, space-filler, and change of direction in thought. To make the story read better, all journalists routinely edit quotations to help the continuity of their stories. If they are also ethical journalists, they do while making sure that they preserve the sense of what the subject said.

At any rate, the comment pleased me, because accurately reflecting what someone has to say is a skill on which I pride myself. When I pitch a story to my editors, I rarely have a fixed opinion on the subject, except when I’m writing a commentary. Instead, I want to write the story because I’m interested in learning more about the subject. My opinion emerges from the as I research the story and talk to different people; on those occasions when I do have an opinion on a subject, I frequently alter it as I develop the story.

This habit does little to soothe the nerves of potential interviewees who ask what my perspective on the subject we’ll discuss happens to be, or ask in advance for the questions I want answered. If I were being completely honest, I’d have to explain that, in most cases, I don’t have the least idea what the perspective will be in the story. Similarly, while I jot down topics I want to cover, I rarely prepare specific questions. When I do, the resulting article is never an example of my best work. Instead, I develop my questions while listening to the interviewee. But these explanations, I suspect, would not be believed by the suspicious. They’d be sure I had a hidden agenda. The more I explained, the more paranoid they would become.

All the same, they’re the truth. While I taught in an English Department when post-colonialism was the prevailing critical theory, I’ve never been a believer in completely subjective truth. At the risk of sounding naive, I believe, if not in objective truth, then in the effort to find it. I’m well aware that my bias creeps in to everything I writer, regardless of my intentions, but I don’t believe that my perspective is endlessly interesting, so I try to vary it with the opinions of those whom I talk to.

That’s not to say that I don’t have a define viewpoint by the time I finish an article – although I do try to subdue the expression of it, because I happen to think that a gently-delivered truth that guides readers to the conclusions I want to give them is more effective than a thundering oration. But if I want to persuade people to accept my outlook, I want to make my development of my points as accurate as possible to make them more logically acceptable.

So, yes, I do try to report the gist of what other people say. It is both part of my code of ethics and part of my style of discussion to do so. No doubt I often fail, both ethically and stylistically, but such are my ideals – and I’m warmed by the thought that someone has noticed.

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The grammar neurosis strikes back

Posted in Bruce Byfield, grammar, journalism, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , on June 23, 2008| 1 Comment »

After writing professionally on the web for several years, I’m no stranger to careless readers and wonky comments. I learned long ago that not only can you not count on everyone to read your thoughts carefully, but that some subjects, such as Microsoft’s intentions towards free software, cause many people’s critical facilities to go on holiday. But none of the subjects I’ve written about provoke as much blind reaction as the suggestion that grammar should be descriptive rather than prescriptive.

I was reminded of this fact recently when I noticed that my article “Tech-writers, Grammar, and the Prescriptive Attitude” had not survived a redesign of the Techwr-l site where it was originally posted. Because I still get requests for it, I asked Deb and Eric Ray, who maintain the site, to send me a copy of the published version, and posted it on my blog. The request also prompted them to repost the essay on the original site. In the days since, I’ve been fielding a comment or two per day from both sources, most of them sent privately.

Some people approve the sentiments in the article, but perhaps half are outraged. They set out to correct my thinking by pointing out that, without consistency, language ceases to communicate. Their assumption seems to be that only official English has consistency. I answer that all forms of English have their own rules – for instance, a double negative, which is considered wrong in official English, is perfectly understandable with the context of some Afro-American dialects (and, I might add, Old English). So far, none of these conversations have continued beyond this point.

Another conversation about the article begins with someone asking if I’m saying that we (by which the reader usually means sophisticated, literary folk like themselves) should go along with mispronunciations or incorrect uses, usually in sarcastic tones that suggest that, of course, I mean no such thing. I reply that I do mean exactly that, that, when a pronunciation or usage reaches a certain degree of popularity, it becomes standard usage.

To this comment, my correspondent usually replies that it is the duty of the literate to fight against such barbarisms. My response is that you are, of course, free to use any language that you care to, but, if you imagine that your example is going to inspire an outbreak of proper usage, then you think far too much of yourself. The most anyone can do is avoid usages that are vague in the name of clarity and personal style – and, at that point, another conversation peters out.

And these are just the most common ones. I’ve been accused of advocating complete chaos, of insisting on poetic language at the expense of clarity, and all sorts of other stances that have nothing to do with what I wrote, no matter how you construe my words. Often enough, people insist that I believe something that I frankly state that I do not believe. Apparently, many people – particularly those who work with words – have so much invested in their self-image as initiates into the secrets of proper grammar that any suggestion that their knowledge is as useless as heraldry immediately robs them of their ability to read and analyze text.

Personally, I find the idea that we have, not one but dozens of versions of English exciting and challenging. It means that, as a writer, I have more to explore than I can possibly learn in one lifetime. But that, unfortunately, seems to be a minority viewpoint.

A good thing that I thrive on being a contrarian, or I might find the hostile responses disheartening.

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Boycott Novell’s Free Software Credibility List and me

Posted in Bruce Byfield, computers, Free Software, freesoftware, journalism, open source, opensource, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 12, 2008| 4 Comments »

A correspondent tells me that Boycott Novell’s Free Software Credibility List gave me a rating of three on a six point scale (I could link, but I don’t want to give the site any more hits than I have to). Until hearing this news, I didn’t know about the list, because, so far as free software is concerned, I only read news sites and blogs with either technical knowledge or expert commentary. Usually, too, I make a habit of not commenting negatively in public on anyone with a claim – no matter how remote – to being a journalist. At the very least, I generally don’t mention them by name. However, since my informant seemed to think I should be upset, I’m making an exception here.

To be honest, I am more amused than angry about a list whose silliness is exceeded only by the self-importance of its owners. I mean,  how does any journalist, no matter how skilled a word-slinger, get the same rating as Stallman, the founder of the free software do? Yet several do. And why are authorities like Eben Moglen off the list?

I also notice that, at least in some cases, the list seems a direct reflection of how closely a journalist’s opinion corresponds with Boycott Novell’s, rather than any criteria that might be mistaken for objectivity. Robin Miller, the senior editor at Linux.com, is apparently denigrated because he took a group tour of the Microsoft campus a couple of years ago (I’m sure the fact that he presided over a podcast in which a Boycott Novell writer performed poorly has nothing to do with his ranking). Other writers seem to rate a 4 or 5 largely because they stick to technical matters and, rarely talking about philosophy or politics, say nothing for Boycott Novell to dissect for suspect opinions.

Strangely, the Boycott Novell cadre didn’t rate their own reliability, although whether that is because they are assumed to be the only ones who rate a perfect six or because the ranking doesn’t include negative numbers, I leave as an exercise to the readers.

From the link attached to my name, my own ranking seems based on the fact that I accepted that a comment signed with a Boycott Novell writer’s name really was by him; when he said it wasn’t, I accepted the claim and he suggested that I was owed “some apologies.” Yet, apparently I’m permanently branded as being only marginally trustworthy because of this minor incident. I suspect, though, that the writer’s belief that I lumped the Boycott Novell writers into the category of conspiracy theorists has more to do with my ranking than anything else.

But these foibles don’t disturb me unduly. Far from being upset, I’m glad of the list, because it gives me a goal. If I write consistently hard-hitting articles in which I dig carefully for facts, build a flawless chain of reasoning, and tell the truth no matter how uncomfortable the consequences, then maybe – just maybe – in a few years Boycott Novell will reward me with the ultimate accolade of a zero ranking some day. Then I’ll know when I have truly arrived.

And that is all that I intend to say on this subject. Ever.

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My hypocrisy about marketing

Posted in Bruce Byfield, career choices, careers, hypocrisy, journalism, marketing, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 29, 2008| 1 Comment »

Recently, I’ve been struggling with the suspicion that my distaste for marketing is hypocrisy.

I’ve been a marketer in a past career incarnation, and a moderately good one, if I say so myself. At Stormix Technologies, I developed the idea of ad campaigns based on different idioms that used the word “storm,” such as storm warning and eye of the storm. Later, at Progeny Linux Systems, I developed a campaign based on the use of a large animal to represent the company, such as a macaw, and a small one to represent the competition, such as a budgie. In the last version of the ad, we used a bull elephant and a toy elephant, under the slogan, “Some companies just toy with open source.”

Even in retrospect, I’m proud of these campaigns, although to be honest the Progeny campaign owed much of its effectiveness to the graphics work done by Rebecca Blake at Lara Kisielewska’s Optimum Design and Consulting in New York. Both campaigns handily accomplished the aim of giving new companies name recognition across North America.

However, it’s nearing five years since I’ve worked as a marketer. At first, I had difficulty finding marketing work in the high-tech recession, and later I found direction as a journalist and stopped looking for marketing work.

Still, given my past, I’m surprised to find myself viewing marketing with increasing distaste. Last year, when I noticed an ex-schoolmate using crudely obvious means to market her company, I told myself that her tactics were reasons to distance myself. More recently, I found myself shaking my head over local bloggers writing about products for money or goods. And when I spent an evening listening to a case study of a guerilla marketing campaign, I found myself thinking the whole idea a waste of creativity. I had a similar reaction when I read a friend’s recent blog enthusing over marketers who organized live roleplaying games to promote their products. I am all for play, since I believe it is important to creativity, but I wondered if marketing wouldn’t sully the whole experience.

The thing is, given my past, what right do I have to look down at marketing? Considering the recession when I tried unsuccessfully to find marketing work, is my reaction just sour grapes? At the very least, I am being inconsistent, and that troubles me, because such inconsistency points to unexamined complexity.

Moreover, I notice that very few people share my attitudes. Many people found the case study I heard clever, and were excited by the possibilities of using real-life games to sell products. I’m next to unique in my moral outrage. That’s fairly common, since I have a strong Puritan streak in me (by which I mean that I’m obsessive about ethics, not that I’m prudish), but righteous outrage, like inconsistency, suggests a complex reaction.

So, what is happening? To answer, I have to fish blindly into the mirky depths of my unconscious, and see what I happen to land.

Part of my reaction, I think, is a reversion to earlier attitudes. I was an academic before I was a marketer, and such dismissals are common to those who have never worked in business. In the last couple of years, I’ve been at a stage in my life when I’ve been reassessing my past through various means – including through this blog – and very likely I’ve made a reconnection that I didn’t realize until now.

Another reason is that I’ve switched sides. Instead of trying to persuade journalists, I am a journalist now. In the last few years, I’ve seen many inept marketers – not least of all those who borrow spammers’ techniques and keep sending information about Windows products to an address that is clearly about GNU/Linux. Because I get forty or more such emails every day, developing a jaundiced view of the marketing profession is only natural. I’ve seen too much of it at its worst.

However, I think the main reason for my disdain is to justify the path I’ve taken. While I could always return to marketing if I was desperate to earn a living, it’s slipped several rankings down in the possibilities. Most likely, I could probably find another gig in free software journalism if I had to. But, as a generalist who believes that “all of the above” is usually the correct choice, I’m obscurely bothered by committing to a single career choice. So, to quieten my misgivings, perhaps I’m hunting for ways of repudiating the possibilities I’ve more or less ruled out.

In other words, my reactions are less about the ethics of marketing in the abstract than about my own decisions about my life. And, having come up with this line of reasoning, I imagine that I can already feel my reaction diminishing. Examining hypocrisy can lead to insights – or so I’ve found in this case.

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Bloggers who are off the artistic roll call

Posted in Blogging, Bruce Byfield, ethics, journalism, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , on May 5, 2008| 5 Comments »

In the past, I’ve described bloggers as amateur journalists. Those who are good enough and ambitious enough eventually find paying gigs and become professional. Broadly speaking, that’s still true, but I now think that’s incomplete. Where a professional journalist is constrained to follow a code of ethics in doing reviews, bloggers only need to follow their consciences. And, for some, their consciences are not enough.

As a professional journalist, I am required by my editors to follow a well-recognized set of guidelines in dealing with my subject matter. If I write about an organization to which I have connections, I’m supposed to disclose that connection, if only at the end of the story. If I receive a piece of proprietary software (not that I ever get much, since I cover free and open source software), I either return it or throw it away when I’m finished with the review. Similarly hardware (again, I don’t get much; due to the vagaries of the tariffs imposed by Canada Customs, few companies are willing to ship from the United States to Canada), I return it to the sender when I’m done.

This basic code of ethics isn’t always comfortable. It means, among other things, that I don’t take out membership in the Free Software Foundation, even though I support that organization’s goals, because I might be tempted to pull my punches should a time ever come when I need to criticize freely. But I try to follow it because part of what I sell is a truthful voice. Unless I make an effort to keep that voice, then what I write is useless.

Probably, the editors I sell to regularly wouldn’t fire me if I knowingly lapsed from these standards. But they would reprimand me the first time, and would probably stop buying my work if I continued in the ethical lapse. They have their own credibility to consider, and buying tainted work doesn’t enhance it. And, at the risk of sounding priggish, I accept these standards as natural and, if not ideal, then at least the best that can be followed to retain integrity.

Imagine my shocked innocence, then, when I discovered that some bloggers do not consider themselves similarly restrained (I won’t name them; I have no wish to pick a fight, and the names don’t matter as much as the behavior). At least one well-known blogger openly advertises on his front page how much he charges to blog about a product. Another blogg accepted samples of moderately priced merchandise to write about it. Then, when the advertising agency that connected them with the manufacturers changed the rules on them but continued to invite them to participate in such campaigns, they were conscience-free enough to complain of maltreatment and spamming. Others also complained about spamming by the same advertiser, but expressed wishes that they could have qualified to take part in such a campaign.

To say the least, these people live in a very different ethical universe than me – and, by extension, than other professional journalists. And, much as I hate to say it (since they all seem decent enough people when I’ve met them socially), their definitions of acceptable behavior makes everything they write unreliable. Unless they announce that they’ve changed their ways, how can I know that what they write is a honest opinion, and not a bought one? Even if they’re writing on an innocuous subject, I’ll always wonder if their opinions are tainted.

Am I being too rigid here? Nobody else seems to be bothered by such behavior, so why should I be? Maybe my self-mocking description of myself as a modern Puritan has more truth than I realized.

All the same, I keep thinking of the comedian Bill Hicks’ comment about people who do product endorsements: “Do a commercial, and you’re off the artistic roll call. Every word you say is suspect, you’re a corporate whore. End of story.”

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