When journalists investigate private businesses for wrongdoing, or upcoming products, or rumors, etc., do they commit corporate espionage? By “corporate espionage” (or “industrial espionage”), I mean simply when one business attempts to obtain information about another business for competitive gain.

Journalists usually work for privately-held media. Learning about other companies helps journalists against their competition by spawning fresh, potentially exclusive, stories to go on their websites or into their newspapers.

• Journalists could argue that they provide a public service.

  Probably, but:

  • That doesn’t necessarily cancel out their engaging in business-against-business intelligence work.

  • Couldn’t the businesses that journalists investigate also argue, under the dominant ideology in this country, that they provide a public service by offering goods in the marketplace? If so, do they contribute better public services than do journalists?

• Journalists could argue that, if the corporation is clearly harming the public, then the journalist has a stronger moral claim to investigate them.

  But, journalists can’t know about the corporation’s harm until after their investigation. Their investigation could demonstrate that the reporter’s hunch was incorrect, in which case we would have to go back to whose public service was greater.

Does it matter whether journalists are considered corporate spies?

If journalists coordinated with law enforcement before investigating private businesses (given that we rely on the government to watch over business otherwise), thereby working on behalf of a public agency, would their work stop being corporate espionage? [1]

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Note also the irony in the message at the bottom of the video window: “Did you know? Viewers like you are our largest single source of support.”

(Thanks to Bob Moser for the link.)

Consider (what I think is) the article’s conclusion:

Having failed to persuade President Obama to scrap a proposed tax on high-cost health insurance policies, labor leaders took their case Tuesday to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and they said they received a more favorable response.

“[Labor leaders] said they received a more favorable response [from Pelosi].” Shouldn’t this be an extraordinarily easy argument to prove? All I need is a to read a labor leader telling me how they were received by Obama, and how much better their reception from Pelosi was.

But what are we told about the reactions of “labor leaders”? Only Andrew Stern saying: “I love the House, and I love the speaker.”

By what rules of logic and argumentation can we reach the conclusion from Stern’s statement?

If no such rule exists, why should we believe what the article is arguing? Why couldn’t the article have simply featured a few quotes?

What upsets me is that the kind of logic on display seems to be common among journalists–those who describe their role as helping people know about what their government is doing. It frustrates me that what passes for political journalism is appears to be devoid of basic argumentative skill.

But, I can’t back up with data the feeling that this writing style is common. It is just memory talking. So, I would welcome arguments to the contrary.

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Reporting: A 747 aircraft crashed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean yesterday.

Journalism: A review of maintenance reports of the 747 aircraft that crashed last month revealed that the airplane had a faulty engine parts. Reports indicate that airline management ignored warnings that the parts were malfunctioning.

Journalism is getting beneath the news. It’s investigation, analysis and thoughtful commentary. It’s in-depth expository reporting. And people are still willing to pay for good journalism. That’s why newspapers and magazines that have placed a premium on providing good journalism have done better — for the most part — than those that focused more on reporting (the Wall Street Journal and New York Times come to mind).

Whose journalism?

“It’s in-depth expository reporting.” How can journalism be different from reporting if it’s a particular form of reporting?

Setting that question aside, is it correct to say that Snell’s definition makes no assumptions as to who is investigating, analyzing, and commenting? If so, is it true that “people [I assume he's thinking primarily of Americans] are willing to pay for good journalism”? Were they ever willing to pay for it?

I present Exhibit A: the federal government. The government happens to have a Federal Aviation Administration, which, according to its Mission, “[issues] and [enforces] regulations and minimum standards covering manufacturing, operating, and maintaining aircraft.” The FAA issues reports on such matters. The Government Accountability Office also issues reports investigating, analyzing, and commenting on government activities, reports that news organizations generally find trustworthy [1].

Although it’s incorrect to say that federal agencies are the only groups capable of producing journalism (as Snell points out, the major newspapers and magazines do so as well), were we to support a higher taxation rate, of course, we would also be supporting for the invaluable journalism of the FAA, GAO, and others. But, I think I can just assert that Americans shudder at the word “taxes.” Is it then fair to assert that Americans are still willing to pay for good journalism? Or, does the question require additional clarification: Whose journalism?

Journalism and argument

Why is the distinction between journalism and reporting important? Is not the quality of a claim — its evidence and reasoning — more important than naming the species of the claim?

What if I were to tell you that a plane crashed outside my apartment yesterday. Would you believe me? Not unless you were given additional evidence, such as a quote from an airline official, or images from the scene. So long as a reader uses critical thinking skills, and thereby recognizing that some claims are more difficult to prove than others, shouldn’t we be discussing which kinds of claims are more important for us to preserve?

Notes

1. Here’s a report from The New York Times, which Snell approvingly cites, that uses a GAO report to add background to a story.

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First, let me briefly recap what attracts me to both Lessig’s argument and some of the responses to it.

Lessig worries about “naked transparency,” a term that is less than clear to me, but seems to represent those groups who advocate for releasing as much data to the public domain as possible, but who don’t have a plan for how the data can be most meaningfully used.

We know that most of us will not take the time to study the data and what they are capable of revealing to us. We will instead be myopic. We will allow the data to prove our conclusions and will not consider the ways in which we may be wrong. According to Lessig, the “naked transparency” movement ignores this reality. The data released in its name will be an trough for hyperbolic, irrational argument.

As several respondents noted, “naked transparency” as used in the article is basically a straw man. But perhaps more importantly, it’s not as if the level of hyperbolic, irrational argument is currently on the decline. Poor reasoning was here last year and it will be here next year. So, why should the constant misuse of data be relevant to whether more data are released? One instead hopes more data will increase, if only slightly, those times when someone presents a really strong argument to us.

Now, my question: Is there any empirical way to talk about the relationship between transparency and argument? As I understand the debate, one could assume there was a time before more transparency (BMT) and after more transparency (AMT). It would be nice if, in judging whether Lessig or his critics are correct, we could take the arguments BMT and compare them with the volume, or salience, or effect, or whatever, of arguments AMT. But how? And if we don’t have these empirical data available, does the transparency question thereby become philosophical — part of the debate about, say, the responsibilities of government?

As I said, this field is new for me. I would really appreciate your sharing of any good resources, books, or articles to help me understand the debate.

PS: Lessig responds to some of his critics in part by saying his argument is different from what I understood it to be: That some data are literally meaningless, or so complex as to be extremely difficult to understand, and these are the data that will be misused and that the “naked transparency” movement needs a plan to handle. For my part, I don’t really see the original article making this point, but I will assume he at least meant it. Regardless, is this question not also an empirical one? Which data are these uber-complex ones? How do we draw that distinction?

1. The articles I read in response to Lessig:

• Jonathan Eyler-Werve, Lawrence Lessig, Against Transparency. We’re Not
• Ellen Miller and Michael Klein, More scrutiny of government is the solution, not the problem
• David Weinberger, Greater transparency will build – not diminish – the public’s trust, and Larry Lessig: Beyond Transparency, and Net Triumphalism
• Ethan Zuckerman, On connecting the dots – a response to Lessig on transparency
• Chris Berendes, Lessig: control transparency? No way!
• Carl Malamud, Larry Lessig and Naked Transparency

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I’ll go through the arguments of Jarvis and Gillmor below. Reason’s post makes mostly similar arguments, except in one spot where they clearly misread the rules — the first commenter on their post points out the error.

Why Jarvis and Gillmor? Only because I happen to follow them on Twitter. They’re arbitrary, not exemplary. Have you found stronger arguments? Share in the comments.

Jarvis

First, Pay Per Post et al, as I realized late to the game, are not aimed at fooling consumers. Who would read the boring, sycophantic drivel its people write? No, they are aimed at fooling Google and its algorithms. It’s human spam. And it’s Google’s job to regulate that.

Pay Per Post may not be aiming to fool consumers, but what if it does? I don’t know who would read “sycophantic drivel” apparently any more than Jarvis does but I’m more sure that not everybody knows their way around Pay Per Post and its ilk as well as he might. Are those people deserving of more protection?

Surely it’s not Google’s job to regulate whether a reader has an adequate understanding of the Web, nor is it their job to highlight those parts of the Web which can harm individuals. It would be nice for them to do so, but it’s not a requirement, so far as I know.

Second, the FTC assumes – as media people do – that the internet is a medium. It’s not. It’s a place where people talk. Most people who blog, as Pew found in a survey a few years ago, don’t think they are doing anything remotely connected to journalism. I imagine that virtually no one on Facebook thinks they’re making media. They’re connecting. They’re talking. So for the FTC to go after bloggers and social media – as they explicitly do – is the same as sending a government goon into Denny’s to listen to the conversations in the corner booth and demand that you disclose that your Uncle Vinnie owns the pizzeria whose product you just endorsed.

I confess to having thought of the Internet as a medium until I read this paragraph. I’m now reconsidering that assumption. But even if we assume the Internet is not a medium, I don’t think it follows that the FTC’s “going after” bloggers is equivalent to the government goon listening in at Denny’s.

In Denny’s, the only people privy to my conversation about Uncle Vinnie are the people I’m talking to, and maybe someone who happens to walk by at the right time, or the people in the table next to me. Regardless, in a face-to-face conversation, there is likely to be a relationship between the speakers, where Person A already knows that Person B’s uncle owns the pizzeria that Person B hawks.

There’s no need for disclosure here – in the context of the conversation, there is less chance that Person B is trying to harm Person A, or that Person A can’t ask enough questions of Person B to figure out B’s relationship with Vinnie.

Contrast the Denny’s conversation with a blog post I make about my uncle’s pizzeria (if my uncle had one, that is). While regular readers or friends might know who my uncle is, someone searching “Columbia MO pizza” does not. Isn’t that person deserving of a warning?

The time element is also important. My conversation at Denny’s exists only for as long as the sound emits.My blog post about pizza is, or at least could be, around for a long time. There’s no guarantee I’ll keep checking back on the post, or that I’ll keep blogging. Two years from now, isn’t someone who stumbles on an isolated post deserving of the proper context?

How much do I have disclose?…And what about automated ads, such as those from Google?

I share these concerns. I suggest reading those paragraphs in Jarvis’ post to understand fully the situations that may come up.

And there is the greatest myth embedded within the FTC’s rules: that the government can and should sanitize the internet for our protection. The internet is the world and the world is messy and I don’t want anyone – not the government, not a newspaper editor – to clean it up for me, for I fear what will go out in the garbage: namely, my rights.

Your right to…? And what about the rights of others? Which rights are promoted and which are muted?

Gillmor

The advertising of the past was a one-to-many system. Call it broadcasting. The Internet is a many-to-many system. Call that conversation. They are not the same.

Sadly, this theme is not picked up again in the rest of the post, so I don’t know what to make of it. In itself, the sentence doesn’t really mean anything. Perhaps he’s trying to make a similar point to what Jarvis did above.

I’ve posted a number of Twitter tweets about Android, including my preference for that environment than Apple’s restricted system. Where, exactly — in a post with a total length of 140 characters — should the disclosure go?

If the FTC were to regulate that disclosure should fall in the same tweet as the original message, then I agree, we have a problem. It’s not clear whether that’s the case. Edward Champion suggests (in update 2) that the FTC may be OK with disclosure in a separate tweet, which is an annoyance, but I think palatable. One would hope, though, that simply listing disclosures on an “about me” page somewhere, linked to from your Twitter profile, would be sufficient.

[W]hat about the extremely common practices of traditional media? Every news organization covering technology gets freebies by the container-load. Book reviewers’ offices overflow with volumes sent by publishers. Subsidized or even complimentary travel, food and other things of this sort are common but too-rarely disclosed.

Fair enough. This point alludes to one part of the new regulations I found confusing: How the FTC determined who a “reasonable” consumer is. From my interpretation, one reason traditional media were excluded from the new rules is that a reasonable reader would know that the newspaper received the product from the company. Oh? I can’t think of a reason why that may or may not be the case.

Regardless, the point Gillmor makes (Jarvis made it too) doesn’t really address whether the new rules are right. In fact, it almost seems by his argument that, were newspapers included under the regulations, then the regulations would thereby become more legitimate, which I don’t think he wants to argue.

We already have laws against fraud. Let’s enforce those — first against the serious fraudsters, who keep getting away with it — before we even consider harsh regulations on speech.

I have no idea what he’s talking about. Not that he’s wrong, but I need to know something about the rules against fraud and how they’re applicable to the current situation before understanding this reason.

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After I finished typing the above, I found Robert Quigley’s arguments on important ambiguities in the regulations. With a dash of humor, to boot. I think most of what he says has merit.

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