Gawker: valleywag, news.com

Transgender journalist caught in Wikipedia edit war

Jackson West — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:20:00 EDT

Ina Fried, the veteran technology reporter and a regular source of good Microsoft dish, is very open about her status as a transgender woman — her CNET blog is titled "Beyond Binary." She knows she's female. But some users of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia any bigot can edit, aren't convinced. An anonymous Wikipedia user in Knoxville, Tenn. however, refuses to accept hers as the last word on the subject, and has been changing pronouns from "she" to "he" on Fried's listing with repeated edits in the last six weeks. The justification offered:

I am a med student with an additional major in Clinical Psychology. Ina's self-proclaimed gender is debatable (and any debatable factoids should be left out of an encyclopedic entry).

This particular Wikipedia editor must not have gotten to the chapter on gender identity disorder in doctorin' reference texts like the DSM or ICD. For everyone's sake, I hope this Wikipedia editor goes into podiatry.

As Fried rightly points out, for reference materials, it's a matter of style. The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, for which Fried serves as a vice president, has a handy stylebook supplement that might help.

But Fried now has a bigger problem with Wikipedia: Her entry has been deemed insufficiently "notable" for the online encyclopedia.

L.A. quake catches Twitter user in ladyparts exam

Owen Thomas — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:40:00 EDT

An earthquake is just an earthquake. But the tech press corps is desperate to make a commonplace natural event, like today's shaking down in Los Angeles, into a story about their favorite companies. Take Twitter user MissRFTC, who was in mid-pelvic exam when the earthquake struck, and announced this to the world. An hour later, MissRFTC was on the phone with "a senior writer from CNET." (Our first guess was Daniel Terdiman, a CNET reporter who often writes about the Internet's quirky culture, but it turns out it was the utterly straitlaced Dawn Kawamoto, better known for hardnosed reporting on Hewlett-Packard board scandals that led the computer company to sic investigators on her.) We're not sure who worries us more: The compulsive oversharer who felt obliged to Twitter about her 15 minutes in the stirrups of fame, or the reporter who thought this might be a story. But mostly, we're jealous we didn't pick up the phone first.

CNET hires (m)adman to blog about Obama's victory

Owen Thomas — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:20:00 EDT

They'll let just about anyone blog these days, won't they? News.com's latest addition: recovering adman Chris Matyszczyk, who writes under the rubric "Technically Incorrect," and reminds me a bit of Dan Lyons's alter ego, Fake Steve Jobs — except that, having met Matyszczyk briefly, I think this is the real thing, not a put-on person. Matyszczyk's fantasy phone call between Hillary Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg is hilarious: Clinton blames Zuckerberg for her loss to Obama, and then hits the paper billionaire up for a donation. What's really funny: Matyszczyk is outsidery enough not to mention the fact that Zuckerberg's cofounder, Chris Hughes, left the social network early on to run Obama's Web campaign. Zuckerberg's posse really is at fault, and not in a metaphorical Facebook-generation way.

Never mind the thousands dead, will China quake delay iPhone shipments?

Jackson West — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:40:00 EDT

A News.com reporter covered the death toll in 28 words before spending the next 613 trying to figure out if the recent earthquake in China near the manufacturing hub of Chengdu would hurt multinational technology companies. Which is only slightly less tasteless than the conversation which broke out on tech news tracker Techmeme — where the conversation revolved around Robert Scoble shouting "first!" You stay classy, technosphere.

NASA does not plan to send Etsy arts-and-crafts sellers into space

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:00:00 EDT

At the PSFK Conference in New York earlier today, NASA and auction site Etsy joined to invite the craftsmen who sell their goods on Etsy to compete to see who could make the best NASA-themed handmade good. "We'll send the two winners into space," Etsy founder Robert Kalin told the crowd. The crowd, along with News.com's Caroline McCarthy, took him at his word. Visions of a ride on Virgin Galactic took hold. Only to be dissolved. Because sadly, it turns out Etsy will not send any two people into space, but only their prize-winning goods. (Photo by pingnews.com)

Google CEO changes slogan from "don't be evil" to "no comment"

Jordan Golson — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:40:13 EST

News.com reporter Elinor Mills flew across the country to interview Google CEO Eric Schmidt on all sorts of topics: search, advertising, Yahoo-Microsoft, and the ostensible reason for the interview, Google Health. Newly installed editor-in-chief Dan Farber writes: "A few minutes before the interview, she was told by a Google spokesman that Schmidt would only answer questions about Google Health." That's not very Googly.

In fact, that reminds us of another big Valley company's attempt to keep reporters "on message." In an interview with Apple's Phil Schiller about the iPhone, when a reporter started asking questions about iTunes' proprietary format, PR people jumped in and tried to end the interview, saying how they're "excited" about the iPhone and "want to stay focused" when the reporter goes off-script.

Next time, Elinor, bring a videocamera, and post Schmidt's question-dodging on YouTube.

(Photo by Charles Haynes)

Valleywag article on News.com editor-in-chief...

Owen Thomas — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:19:30 EST

Valleywag article on News.com editor-in-chief Jai Singh's resignation: 11:00 a.m.
TechCrunch article on Singh's resignation: 11:20 a.m.
News.com article on Singh's resignation: 3:31 p.m.

Party at the New York City Googleplex!

Owen Thomas — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:51:46 EDT

We're getting live reports on who's making it past the velvet rope at Google's New York party. The bash, held in Google's West Chelsea offices at 76 Ninth Avenue, has already kicked up a fuss. Google's controlling-but-not-that-bright PR people have tried to limit the guest list to consumer and fashion reporters, figuring they'd be more likely to critique the buffet and less likely to ask pesky questions about the search engine's business practices. So far, they've had mixed results. Here's who we've heard has showed up so far — and who's been barred at the door.

Notorious nobody and Star magazine editor-at-large Julia Allison has swanned her way in, as has Erik Sofge of ... Popular Mechanics? So much for the event's glam factor. Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer is ~~being held at the door~~ in, after receiving a self-righteous lecture at the hands of a very nice if overly empowered Google staffer. Also in: Sam Gustin of Portfolio.com, and vlog-hot Caroline McCarthy of News.com, who'd rate as one of the Valley foxes if she weren't based out of Gotham. Apparently, though, the business reporters who get past the gate are being told not to take pictures. Got more reports on who's in and who's out? Let us know.

Update: Google executive Marissa Mayer, another overly empowered sort, has shown up wearing what sounds like a hideous outfit: "black pants black shirt with purple and bue polka dots and black shoes that show off red toenails," according to one eyewitness. Anyone daring enough to violate Google PR's photo ban and send in a pic?

Update: Douglas Merrill, Google's VP of engineering, is wearing a "hideous red paisley shirt," our unofficial fashion correspondent reports.

News.com fires its video team

Owen Thomas — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 18:31:45 EDT

Turns out that the rumor we heard was on target: CNET, in an effort to rationalize its video operations, laid off News.com executive editor Harry Fuller and Neha Tiwari, a video producer. "The reasoning behind it is that News.com Video was often competing internally with CNET's video property, CNET TV, and that there was too much content overlap," says a tipster. "There are also indications that Harry had a falling out with [News.com editor] Jai Singh, but the details of this supposed disagreement were not revealed." Sounds juicy. Anyone got more?