EFF Takes Aim at Bogus Online Gaming Patent [LWN.net]

EFF Takes Aim at Bogus Online Gaming Patent

Posted Feb 1, 2008 5:26 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (guest, #19270)
Parent article: EFF Takes Aim at Bogus Online Gaming Patent

Umm - it's fine for the EFF to call the patent bogus, but as journalists, LWN has a
responsibility to be even-handed in its headlines and stories. The pejorative should have been
quoted or described as being the EFF's language, rather than LWN's. [It's also easy to read
the "illegitimate" and "bogus" in the text as being LWN's words, because the two-level
quotation is visually confusing.]

EFF Takes Aim at Bogus Online Gaming Patent

Posted Feb 1, 2008 21:03 UTC (Fri) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

We have a terribly broken patent system, and it wouldn't be a stretch to believe a lot of it
is because of corruption, incompetence, overwork, or any and all of the above.  Until that's
fixed at least to some degree, I can see no way that opponents of software patents are left
with much other than knee-jerk reactions.  It's as if I were invitied into an apartment that
was a complete pig-sty and someone pointed out to me that there was a McDonald's cup left on
top of the TV set.

In fact, now that I think about it, "objective" or "accurate" or "balanced" opinions about
patents at this time in our history would probably be interpreted, by their supporters, as
evidence the system might *not* be broken.  Much as Microsoft bigots got all happy and "ya
see-ya see!" whenever I used to say I thought Microsoft Access was pretty near the greatest
program I ever used, overall.

EFF Takes Aim at Bogus Online Gaming Patent

Posted Feb 2, 2008 0:32 UTC (Sat) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link]

[It's also easy to read the "illegitimate" and "bogus" in the text as being LWN's words, because the two-level quotation is visually confusing.]
And tying back to another on-going discussion, the title is neither in quote marks nor does it say (eff.org) in parentheses after it.

Journalistic Objectivity is "Bogus"

Posted Feb 2, 2008 2:18 UTC (Sat) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link] (2 responses)

Only the most idealistically naive readers expect journalists to be truly objective.  No one
with an ounce of practical sense expects journalistic impartiality.

Sophisticated readers choose a variety of perspectives (different media sources among them)
and view news from each with its own biases in mind.

In particular LWN has had a strongly pro-FLOSS, anti-Software patent slant forever.  Any idiot
who reads it knows that.

So it would be disingenuous of LWN's editorials staff to attempt to appear "balanced" on this
issue.  That's not to say that LWN should ignore any shred of mitigating or potentially
redeeming quality to these patents; just to say that, if they agree with the EFF about the
validity of these patents then I would not expect them to be mealy-mouthed about using words
like "bogus."

If you want to flip side of this sort of story --- look for Wall Street Journal's take on the
story; or anything by the Kiplinger folks.  They'll be about as "pro-business" as any sources
I can think of.

JimD

Journalistic Objectivity is "Bogus"

Posted Feb 3, 2008 20:23 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

That doesn't mean that journalists shouldn't strive to be impartial. 
Across most of the world, journalists remember that. In the US, they seem 
to have forgotten...

Journalistic Objectivity is "Bogus"

Posted Feb 9, 2008 23:16 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

If you want the flip side of this sort of story --- look for Wall Street Journal's take on the story; or anything by the Kiplinger folks. They'll be about as "pro-business" as any sources I can think of.

Are you saying bogus patents are pro-business? It's businesses that have to pay the royalties and legal defense expenses.

EFF Takes Aim at Bogus Online Gaming Patent

Posted Feb 3, 2008 0:45 UTC (Sun) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link] (1 responses)

> Umm - it's fine for the EFF to call the patent bogus, but as journalists,
> LWN has a responsibility to be even-handed in its headlines and stories.

LWN is even-handed in the headlines and stories that they create.  Many articles, such as this
one, are from the general news and are passed through unaltered, headline and all, because LWN
is not the author.  The summary is always a bit of text taken unaltered from the article text
as well.  This is the way LWN has always operated.  I prefer this method rather than the
Slashdot method where someone butchers the original title and summary with their own opinion.

EFF Takes Aim at Bogus Online Gaming Patent

Posted Feb 4, 2008 0:17 UTC (Mon) by sepreece (guest, #19270) [Link]

I hadn't noticed that this was a pass-through item. Some LWN announcements are apparently
passed through, headline and all, others are cited with an LWN introduction and headline
(Which here presumably would have been something like The EFF *announced* that...", where the
"announced would have been a link). The only way I noticed to distinguish them is a
"Comments:" at the bottom of ledes for cited items, versus "Full story:" on pass-throughs.

I respect LWN's work, especially Jon's, a lot. On this particular aspect I think LWN would be
improved if there were some clear indication in the story and headline when an item is a
pass-through - like putting the source's name in the headline, e.g., "EFF: EFF takes aim
at...", or even just putting quotation marks around the headline to indicate it's a quoted
title. The current method seems to create an opportunity for people issuing news releases to
game LWN into appearing to take an opinion in their headlines.