Dan Lyons's slant

Message ID: 77082
Posted By: brightshiningreflection
Posted On: 2004-01-01 17:36:00
Subject: Dan Lyons's slant

Dan has been informed thoroughly (probably by many of us posting here) where his articles have been 1) wrong; 2) biased; 3) sprinkled with allusions of linux/open source connections to communism/socialism; 4) sprinkled with personal attacks; 5) lacking in substance and lacking in evidence of journalistic enterprise (as in digging up information that's useful to readers).

He knows what he's doing. His isn't an information role. He is the disingenuous hack who dismissed Groklaw as if it were simply another message board. He paints linux/open source developers as hoards of unwashed rabble threatening stability in a world that is made better by commercial, proprietary software. A world which Dan thinks is threatened by what he sees as the "innovation stifling" forces of open source.

Dan's a 21st century throwback to the sycophants who lauded the robber barons of the 19th century for "producing progress."

He's irrelevant as a commentator on the technology business but significant as an example of Forbes's editorial intentions.

Message ID: 77106
Posted By: thaddeusbeier
Posted On: 2004-01-01 20:52:00
Subject: Re: Dan Lyons's slant

I've talked extensively with Dan Lyons. You should know that what he's really trying to do is stir up controversy, and the best way to do it is to make outrageous, seemingly one-sided comments.

What you might also not know is that there's a big difference between forbes.com and Forbes magazine. The website articles are written relatively off-the-cuff, and are more a duty than a priveledge withing Forbes. He has to put something out, might as well be easy.

I have to say that I think his predictions are way off base, at least with respect to timing. I do believe that SCO will eventually settle with IBM, or go bankrupt before trial. There's no way that this will see a jury. This will not happen next year, though -- SCO, for better or worse, has millions of dollars they have to burn through paying Boies & Co. It'll take at least a year.

Whatever.

thad

Message ID: 77115
Posted By: brightshiningreflection
Posted On: 2004-01-01 22:20:00
Subject: Re: Dan Lyons's slant

I've exchanged comments with Dan myself. I find him a deceitful, lying, idealogical lightweight. He misrepresented what he himself had written. He misrepresented his motives (judged by the hatchet job he did on some of this lists posters). He sucked a bunch of people in with his "I want to do an interview with you so you can get your ideas out to the world," bullshit.

Yup, Dan's a slime and he's not actually very smart. He is simply perfect for his role as Forbes's propagandist against open source.

Dan is also intellectually lazy. He thinks that getting quotes from a variety of parties and then picking and choosing among those to push his agenda is journalism. He wouldn't know a real story if it pissed all over his head or punched him in the nose. Ed Morrow wouldn't consider Dan worthy of emptying the trash, much less having a "technology" byline in a business news magazine.

Now, that's JMHO. Dan might be smarter than IQ 70 and he might be more honest than a used car salesman. He just didn't show any of those attributes to me.

Message ID: 77117
Posted By: brightshiningreflection
Posted On: 2004-01-01 22:31:00
Subject: Re: Dan Lyons's slant

Did I say "slime?"

That might do a disservice to snot.

Lower than slime might be more appropriate.

Again, JMHO.

Message ID: 77129
Posted By: brightshiningreflection
Posted On: 2004-01-01 23:46:00
Subject: Just to be clear....

Enderle and Didio are hacks who publish in obscurity in various unread industry rags. Their job is like Dan's--to undercut anything that threatens the status quo (as in current advertisers). However, Enderle's and Didio's only real influence is in being quoted in the popular, mass market press: "Industry analyst Laura Didio says, 'SCO blows really neat and cute bubbles.' It's all secondary for Didio and Enderle.

Dan is a different breed of cat: He has a pulpit in a visible church of Capitalism-as-Religion. It is interesting that he is free to be even more down and dirty, scraping the journalistic scum off the bottom of the barrel and spewing it out as if it were a call to arms against the godless heathens and Bolsheviks. It takes an unusual patron to get away with the travesty that Dan calls "journalism." I guess Forbes is such a patron. And, Dan is such a lacky.

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