

Lawrence Lessig: The made-up dramas of the Wall Street Journal - twampss
http://lessig.org/blog/2008/12/the_madeup_dramas_of_the_wall.html

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Prrometheus
It is pretty hard for someone not deeply immersed in the particular jargon of
the debate to understand what Lessig is trying to communicate in his public
statements. For example, this quote from Lessig's testimony to the Senate
Commerce Committee is quite ambiguous:

"As I testified in 2006, in my view that minimal strategy right now marries
the basic principles of “Internet Freedom” first outlined by Chairman Michael
Powell, and modified more recently by the FCC, to one additional requirement —
a ban on discriminatory access tiering. While broadband providers should be
free, in my view, to price consumer access to the Internet differently —
setting a higher price, for example, for faster or greater access — they
should not be free to apply discriminatory surcharges to those who make
content or applications available on the Internet. As I testified, in my view,
such “access tiering” risks creating a strong incentive among Internet
providers to favor some companies over others; that incentive in turn tends to
support business models that exploit scarcity rather than abundance. If
Google, for example, knew it could buy a kind of access for its video content
that iFilm couldn’t, then it could exploit its advantage to create an even
greater disadvantage for its competitors; network providers in turn could
deliver on that disadvantage only if the non-privileged service was inferior
to the privileged service."

I understand how someone could misread that statement to support the view that
Lessig is opposed to tiered content-provider access. I certainly did not get
the point that Lessig wanted me to get when I first read his statement.

That said, journalists should try to get these things straight.

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DanielBMarkham
Instead of ranting on his blog, how about writing a nice letter to the editor?
Newspapers screw things up all the time. I'm sure they would either a) defend
the original story, or 2) issue a retraction.

Instead he wants to have a one-sided conversation. WSJ journal readers deserve
better, and his blog readers deserve better. Do the right thing instead of
trying to make everything into something that's bigger than what it is.

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kragen
You are making assertions about what the man wants. Have you talked to him
about that? Do you have any basis for your defamatory assertion whatsoever,
other than observing that the WSJ has not yet published a Letter to the Editor
from him?

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bitdiddle
As a reader for more than 25 years, I cancelled my subscription to the WSJ
when it recently changed hands and haven't so much a as peeked at it since.
Considering it's current ownership I'm not surprised by this distortion

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fallentimes
Just curious, what do you read instead?

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maurycy
Financial Times? The Economist? New Yorker? There's a lot of decent, event
better, magazines and newspapers.

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bitdiddle
The WSJ was once a great paper, when it stuck to business and financial
reporting and before Bartley, Noonan, and the current scum took over the
editorial page. One could read the WSJ, NY Times, New Yorker, The Nation, and
The National review to get a good healthy mix and diversity of strong opinion.
I shudder to think what will happen if Murdoch gets his hands on the Times.
Just my two cents, YMMV :)

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Prrometheus
WSJ has some of the best journalism on the planet. The editorial page is crap,
but no other paper has as many in-depth articles about global markets. Want to
read about China's problem with renegade mayors? Want to read about how
western fishing policies are decimating African octopus fisheries? You're not
going to read about that anywhere else besides the Wall Street Journal.

The closest approximation to the Journal is the Economist, and that's a
weekly.

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bitdiddle
Well I certainly agree with your comment about the editorial page, though it
was far better years ago, even including serious opposing views for balance.

However I would even caution readers with respect to the articles in the rest
of the paper. I could no longer read an article about chinese mayors and give
it any credence given Murdoch's ownership.

It was a sad day for me. The WSJ was the only online journal I ever paid money
for.

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jimbokun
"I could no longer read an article about chinese mayors and give it any
credence given Murdoch's ownership."

Is there evidence of inaccurate reporting at the WSJ, or are you just basing
this on the fact that Murdoch also owns Fox News?

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bitdiddle
I certainly have no evidence, as I mentioned I completely stopped reading it
when Murdoch took over. Perhaps he will allow it to maintain it's quality.
I've followed him for years, he used to own the South China Morning Post, at
one point one of the few english papers available in Hong Kong. His flip flops
with respect to the chinese government have certainly convinced me we don't
share a lot of values.

I don't really watch TV at all, but occasionally view Fox in airports and such
to keep up with what is on TV. I'm amazed that a lot of people actually watch
that sort of thing as serious news.

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mattmaroon
I'm very glad to see his response to what felt to me like a PR piece sponsored
by the telcos.

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wumi
real transparency in journalism would be, below the title of the WSJ article,
an update (a la tech blog like TechCrunch or VentureBeat) and link to Lessig's
commentary.

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dhimes
Agreed. Keep in mind it's now Fox news....

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jmtame
I sent the authors of that article a pretty nasty letter this morning.

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gasull
Google response to WSJ art.:
[http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/12/net-
neutralit...](http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/12/net-neutrality-
and-benefits-of-caching.html)

