[WikiEN-l] Re: Articles about ourselves

Thu Nov 6 18:39:04 UTC 2003

You wrote:

>That's not true.  I'm not interested in boring everyone with a long
>discussion of how my politics and yours differ, and my own critique of
>your work.  But I can tell you how I think the article is biased.  The
>point is that your work *is* controversial and the biography doesn't
>give any suggestion of that.

I guess that depends on what you mean by "controversial." The only 
evidence you've offered for that is the statement that your "head 
nearly exploded" when you read an article by me in your local 
newspaper.All this tells me is that you disagree with something I 
wrote (although I have no idea what _specifically_ you found 
objectionable), but that alone doesn't make me "controversial." For 
someone to be "controversial," I think there has to be a _public_ 
controversy, and your exploding head is not enough to make a 
controversy.

_Any_ writer's work, unless it is a textbook on some dry, technical 
topic, is bound to have some people who disagree with it. Of course 
some people disagree with my writings, and I'm sure that my work 
contains errors and bias. I'm a human being, and all human beings are 
prone to errors and bias. All I can do about that personally is make 
a good faith effort to look at criticisms and correct errors when 
they are pointed out to me. The fact of the matter, however, is that 
there have been very few negative reviews of my books, and even fewer 
cases in which people have pointed to specific errors in them.

Case in point: I'm sure that John's and my latest book is 
"controversial" to people who support the war in Iraq, which of 
course is self-evident from the title ("Weapons of Mass Deception"). 
However, the only specific errors that anyone has noticed in 
"Weapons" are trivial. (For example, we referred to the Czech 
Republic in one place as "Czechoslovakia.") Maybe the absence of 
public criticism just means we're not important enough for critics to 
think it's worth the debate (even though "Weapons" spent two months 
on the New York Times extended bestseller list). It's clear that the 
war in Iraq is controversial (and our book is among the works 
"controverting" it), but that doesn't mean our book itself is 
controversial. For the book itself to be considered controversial, 
there has to be a controversy about it, and aside from Jimbo's 
exploding head, there hasn't been one.

For what it's worth, though, I have added a few sentences to my 
article summarizing what PR industry defenders have said about my 
work, including a link to the ActivistCash.com web site, our only 
real public critic. For the record, I regard ActivistCash.com (the 
work of a Washington lobbyist for the tobacco, liquor and restaurant 
industries) as grossly unfair and dishonest. For example, they went 
so far as to call John and me "terrorists" on one occasion shortly 
after 9/11, and they have absurdly and falsely claimed that I 
personally channeled millions of dollars to the Sandinista government 
in Nicaragua.

>I personally think that the article about you speaks for itself in
>terms of critics being reluctant to edit, out of courtesy to you, or
>fear of you having the same sort of outbursts that you've had at Ed
>Poor in the past.

Oh, you mean the "outburst" I had when Ed attacked me upon 
discovering that I had joined this list? (An attack that you yourself 
stated -- and Ed himself eventually admitted -- was unfair?) Or do 
you mean the recent "outburst" in which I reacted to his declaration 
that he was going to send out "official" warnings to other 
Wikipedians for engaging in what he called "junk science" and NPOV 
violations? Why is it OK for Ed to attack other Wikipedians, and an 
"outburst" when I defend them vigorously?

I think my exchanges with Ed have been blunt and persistent, but I 
don't they were "outbursts." YMMV.
-- 
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
--------------------------------