[LEMONS] 9.29.2005
The Dangers of Cut-and-Paste Journalism
When I fired up my newsreader this morning, I was pretty taken aback by the following story I saw on iLounge:Warner exec: Labels could cut off iTunes Music Store
By Larry Angell | 09.28.05 | iTunes | tell-a-friend
Warner Music Group digital strategy chief Michael Nash said today that the major record labels could easily cut off the iTunes Music Store if Apple CEO Steve Jobs doesn’t budge in the song pricing battle.
“What if Jobs says 39 cents or 29 cents per download—what then?” Nash asked during a panel discussion at the CTIA Telecomms Show. “The industry can say, OK we’ll cut him off—very few people people buy music from digital downloads.” The music executive said Jobs will have to find another way to help sell iPods. “[Jobs] will figure out another model,” he said.
Nash also said that the music industry has let Apple get away with too much dominance in paid digital downloads. “The industry got together and said ‘We don’t want another MTV’. Well, now we’ve got another MTV, in Apple. And we have to deal with it,” he said."
Pretty outrageous, right? Or, it would be if it were true. Which it's not.
Curiously, I happened to make a phone call to a media rep at Warner Music today regarding Nash (on an unrelated topic) within minutes of reading the above story. I mentioned the story, and my contact there told me that it was, well, bogus. After I got off the phone, I went back to look for the correction and, er.... it wasn't there. Which was when I noticed the link to The Register in the first line (I hadn't followed it before). Clicking on it brought me to this doozy of a correction:
Warner Music's Michael Nash - no executionerThe Register, obviously, made a hell of a mistake. But that was compounded when iLounge (and presumably other news blogs) picked up the story and re-ran it without clear attribution. As I wrote this, there were nearly 50 outraged comments at the bottom of the iLounge page. Technorati lists two sites linking to the iLounge story and another 13 to the original story on the Register.
Reg oops
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Published Thursday 29th September 2005 17:21 GMT
In a story entitled Warners raises decapitation strategy for Apple, we wrongly attributed remarks about Apple's iTunes Music Store made during a panel discussion at the CTIA show to Warner Music senior vice president Michael Nash.
These remarks were made by another panelist, Kenneth Hertz, partner at Goldring Hertz and Lichtenstein LLP, a law firm representing major recording industry artists.
Hertz, not Nash, said -
"What if Jobs says 39 cents or 29 cents per download - what then? The industry can say, OK we'll cut him of - very few people people buy music from digital downloads... [Jobs] will figure out another model ... The industry got together and said 'We don't want another MTV'. Well, now we've got another MTV, in Apple. And we have to deal with it."
To Michael and everyone at Warner: we're really sorry.
One of my many jobs is working as a fact-checker at a magazine here in town, and in fact I spent about 14 hours yesterday checking out a story. It's hard work, and it's not often done on the Web due to the immediate nature of this publishing platform. I certainly am guilty of getting facts wrong in stories I've written. Likewise, I've often linked to news stories and restated their claims without attribution, or disclaiming it as another's reporting ("According to The Register"). Hell, I run an entire blog that does just that with every entry, every day. I'm not blaming anyone for getting details wrong (although that was one hell of a misattribution by the orginal reporter from The Register), or for linking to a story that got the details wrong.
But this illustrates a real problem with blogs. Not only can they be used to fact-check stories and make them more accurate, they also can rapidly propigate inaccuracies. The original story on The Register is long gone. But Michael Nash will doubtlessly be misquoted--and subsequently unjustly criticized--for a long time to come as this story continues to echo across the Web.
3 comments
This is something that I touched on with my dissertation but didn't have the scope or the time to sidetrack into it. It's definitely a concern.
-- noted
MacDara : 12:23 PMI reallly enjoyed reading your thesis, it's excellent.
-- noted
mat : 10:27 AMelectronet not good...
-- noted
jefe : 12:32 PM- l i n k -
