Time travel on linux.com

Sam Varghese
Wednesday, 02 May 2007 11:19

Opinion and Analysis

Microsoft Office 365

Why make a big deal out of this? Had Linux.com admitted its screw-up and corrected it, things would never have been publicised this way. And I did try to make that happen.My first email to them ran as under:

"In the interests of accuracy, it would be good if you correct the headline and first paragraph of your Sam Hocevar interview. It is not the first interview - I published an interview with Sam at noon on April 29, AEST - which is 11 hours ahead of GMT. That puts it almost two days ahead of Byfield's piece. Your interview is dated April 30 and claims to be the first. It is not. I trust the correction will be made."

I screwed up on the time difference by an hour - we are 11 hours ahead of GMT when daylight saving is in effect. That just ended.

I received a reply from the executive editor of linux.com, Lee Schlesinger. It said: "The timing is my fault - we had the interview in the system on April 26,but I opted to hold it until today. So while yours no doubt ran earlier, I believe ours was conducted earlier."

I found this a bit rich. Not only did it show that the man knew little or nothing about journalism, it also showed that he was trying to weasel his way out of a tricky situation.

My next email was still polite though I aimed to lead him up the garden path:

"You don't know when my interview was conducted so how can you claim yours was done earlier? FYI, as a journalist (a genuine one) let me also point out that an article is published only when it is visible to the world at large, not when the facts are gathered. Are you still going to persist with this lie?"

Schlesigner came back with: "When did you conduct your discussion with Mr. Hocevar? We never claimed to be the first to be published."

This was entering the regions of Ripley's Believe It Or Not. I found it difficult to believe but the next round of correspondence illustrated the fact that Schlesinger was really into weasel words.

I responded: "You're the one making the claim, you give the date of your interview." And in response to his statement of never having claimed to be the first to publish, I quoted from the article: "First interview: Sam Hocevar, new Debian Project Leader. Recently, Linux.com discussed these challenges with Hocevar via email in his first interview since his election," and added: "Sure, you never did (make the claim of being first)."