Phillip Elmer Dewitt: "I screwed up"

["Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>]

there's an interesting debate going on over in alt.internet.media-coverage.
Phillip Elmer Dewitt has been posting a bit on his role in the "Rimm job".
Up until about now he has been very evasive, in denial, and seemingly
deflecting criticism and playing "spin doctor" with his article. 

however, IMHO a breakthrough just happened where below he apologizes, 
although not for anything specific. some on the
newsgroup are pressuring him to (1) run a new time story (2) issue
some kind of retraction or advice to other journalists based on what
he learned from the affair.

I would suggest emailing him and trying to be conciliatory (don't
flame his eyebrows off), but at the same time asking him to 
write something substantial about
his experience that can either be circulated on the internet or
in some other magazine. his experience in the affair, given in
simple bullet-list form, would be immensely valuable to other
reporters and could help "head off at the pass" (press?) many future 
internet-trashing articles. this is a very invaluable opportunity
for cpunks to not merely whine and rant, but to try to influence
the future in a positive way through your input.

also in the newsgroup is an article in which he describes how

1) he had several indications the article made "suspicious" claims
from people, including Mike Godwin of EFF, who he talked to on the phone
about twice or so. he also noticed that it made unsupportable claims,
even the one on the cover that tried to generalize the BBS info
to the Internet realm.

2) he was suspicious of Rimm at a point, particularly after Rimm
refused to elaborate on his background, and called his advisor
and Rimm personally, and Rimm assured him that "nothing in
his background would embarrass him or Time." apparently DeWitt
also had heard about the "casino study".


------- Forwarded Message

From: ped@panix.com (Philip Elmer-DeWitt)
Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.culture.internet,alt.culture.usenet
Subject: Re: More PEDagogy (was Re: TIME Cover on Cyberporn)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 1995 19:04:56 -0500


>         Yes, the damage is done.  Even an honest retraction at this 
> point won't alter the public perception that the net is awash in 
> pornography.  But I could honestly tell my students PED deserves 
> respect rather than scorn IF HE'D SWALLOW HIS PRIDE and urge his 
> colleagues to learn from his mistakes.
>         He probably won't.  I'm not sure I could take my own advice 
> were the roles reversed.  But PED, if you can't do what you should,
> at least spare us any more embarrassing rationalizations.    

Good advice. 

I don't know how else to say it, so I'll just repeat what I've said
before. I screwed up. The cover story was my idea, I pushed for it, and it
ran pretty much the way I wrote it. It was my mistake, and my mistake
alone. I do hope other reporters will learn from it. I know I have.

I've also tried to explain how it happened, not to rationalize my
mistakes, but to answer specific questions. I didn't want to seem
unresponsive, and I generally don't mind a little embarassment. But I
think you are right; answering those questions in this forum is only
creating more bad will. If people are genuinely curious about how the
Cyberporn debacle came to be, I will reply to queries in e-mail.

- -- 
Philip Elmer-DeWitt                                   ped@well.com
TIME  Magazine                      http://www.pathfinder.com