<
https://www.theverge.com/press-room/22772113/the-verge-on-background-policy-update>
"Today,
The Verge is updating our public ethics policy to be clearer in our
interactions with public relations and corporate communications professionals.
We’re doing this because big tech companies in particular have hired a dizzying
array of communications staff who routinely push the boundaries of acceptable
sourcing in an effort to deflect accountability, pass the burden of truth to
the media, and generally control the narratives around the companies they work
for while being annoying as hell to deal with.
The main way this happens is that big companies take advantage of a particular
agreement in the media called “background.” Being “on background” means that
they tell things to reporters, but those reporters agree to not specifically
attribute that information to a person by name. Oftentimes, companies will make
things significantly worse and also insist that background information be
paraphrased, further obscuring both specific details and the source of those
details.
There are many reasons a reporter might agree to learning information on
background, but importantly, being on background is supposed to be an
agreement.
But the trend with big tech companies now is to increasingly treat background
as a
default or even a condition of reporting. That means reporters are now
routinely asked to report things without being able to attribute them
appropriately, and readers aren’t being presented with clear sources of
information.
This all certainly feeds into the overall distrust of the media, which has dire
consequences in our current information landscape, but in practice, it is also
hilariously stupid."
Via Hank G, who wrote "When are other news outlets going to do the same thing
as The Verge on closing this gigantic loophole that big tech companies are
exploiting to control messaging through the press?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
