thomashawk.com — Recently The Register published a story regarding IE7 nuking Google and Yahoo! toolbars. As part of their story they published an email from Microsoft top blogger Robert Scoble supposedly documenting this. The problem is that Robert Scoble says the email is fabricated and still The Register refuses to offer a retraction.
Nov 8, 2005 View in Crawl 4
thomashawkNov 8, 2005Submitter
To me the fact that The Register would chide bloggers on our ethics and say that we need to "tell the truth" and then turn around and allow a disputed email to be printed as fact even when disputed by the alleged author is the type of hypocrisy that I just can not stomach.
zickieNov 8, 2005
I'm not a big fan of Minisoft, but responsible accurate journalism is of paramount importance, particularly nowadays with more and more spin. In principle I have a big problem with this. It's the sort of reporting I've noticed in the US and in the UK. It's not journmlism, it's marketing and it's not why I buy magazines or newspapers. I"ll personally be doing my own research and sending an email to Joe Fay.
thomashawkNov 8, 2005Submitter
Update: It would appear that The Register has finally printed a correction on this story. This is good news. Still, it would be nice to know how they came to be in possession of an email that is disputed by it's alleged author. Personally, if they were "played" and sent a fraudulent email then I think they should tell us where that email came from. Then the sender could either confirm or dispute it's accuracy. At minimum they should confirm in writing that this is the way they receieved the email as it leaves one to wonder in a worst case scenario if they in fact were played or whether or not Orlowski simply made the email up.