A Warning about WSJ and Jane Costello
 

Everyone should be aware that Jane Costello, Wall Street Journal Online uses this board to trawl for stories.

That in its-self I have no problem with, what I do have a problem with is that she took a quote from one of my posts, and found out who I am (not too difficult as I don't hide).

She then published my real name, the (out of context) quote, where I live, where I work, and what I do for a living - ALL WITHOUT MY PERMISSION in an article that appeared on Aug 07.

I will still continue to leave my email address and other info on my profile - I don't have anything to hide - but please be aware that she may steal anyones info and quote you without asking.

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I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous

That sounds very shady to me. Thanks for the heads up.

A journalist with real integrity would never do something like that. That's something you'd expect from one of those supermarket tabloids.

I had Jane email me for details on an anecdote I posted here, but I responded and she was polite, totally above board and ethical, so I'm surprised by your story.

I HAVE been spammed by OTHER WSJ reporters who are "trawling" for stories and they -- not Jane -- have been very rude. They didn't offer the courtesy of a personal response. In one case the reporter requested a bunch of anecdotal, "tip"-style information which took me an hour to assemble -- then ignored it.

It made me sorry I once defended journalists who work this way.

Clearly numerous WSJ reporters, mostly from the "Marketplace" and "Weekend" sections, cruise these boards looking for "color" (anecdotes, personal examples, etc.) they can stir into their stories without making any real effort. As a former reporter myself, I can tell you one of the hardest parts of the job is finding credible, suitable "real people" who personify a point you're trying to make. Flyertalk is teeming with great examples -- so it must look like a great labor-saver.

But the WSJ staff is using us on the assumption that we'll be thrilled to get our names in the paper. This sort of journalism may not be legally or ethically wrong, but it's lazy and shouldn't be rewarded by us.

yyz-den, you conceivably could write to Joanne Lipman, editor-in-chief of the "Weekend" section, or Jonathan Dahl, the editor, if you felt your privacy was violated.

You may want to consider (if you haven't done so already) writing a letter to Wall Street Journal to complain about this. I'm certain she is in violation of WSJ's journalistic guidelines by publishing personal information without consent.

On top of that, copying the information from FlyerTalk without proper attribution is probably contrary to the journalistic standards of the WSJ.

In short, Jane Costello is being a very lazy writer who didn't even take the minimal effort to follow even basic journalistic standards.

Plato90

She did attribute the quote, but did not ask me whether she could use it.

It was not something I would not want my mother to read, but that is not my point here.

To me common decency dictates at least asking permission before publishing personal information, unless of course the public good is served by disclosure, certainly not the case here.

So when we post to these boards, there is no ownership? I'm not talking a copyright or anything for us, I was thinking maybe FT had some rights, since they "published" our work?

I usually know just enough about any subject to be dangerous, so I'm sure I am way off. Just wondered if anyone else might know more in this direction.

yyz-den,

I was actually referring to attributing your comments to FlyerTalk, not you personally. While it's given that posts to a public forum like FlyerTalk puts the contents out of your personal control, they remain in the control of FT. That's why they are allowed to edit or delete posts at their discretion.

WSJ should not re-print content taken from FT without at least attributing it properly to FT.

Plato90s

Point taken, I don't know if she did (attribute to FT) or not, I had the relevant bits read to me over the phone by someone at WSJ, she promised to email it to me but it hasn't arrived.

if she used your "real" name without permission I would take it up with Randy as well as w/ WSJ.

My experiences with Jane are very much the same as BearX220's. I have found that Jane was very polite and professional in our email exchanges.

I'm not so sure what Jane did is journalistically unethical, assuming that she, in fact, did as you claim. By posting your real name or real e-mail address -- as I do -- it's not hard for somebody to find out who you are. And this website is part of the public domain to the extent that anybody with internet access can see it. So she is simply taking information from the public domain and reporting on it. It's not much different than a reporter providing a report based on events that they witnessed. But if she did this, while it may not be journalistically unethical, it is still journalistically improper, in my opinion. After all, one might not really be who he or she says they are. It's easy for anybody to create a false identity on the internet. Therefore, Jane may be taking information from a source that is not credible. That is a major journalistic boo boo. But for the record, every time that I have been contacted by reporters from the WSJ, (mostly Rafer Guzman -- never Jane Costello), they have been polite and ethical.

I pulled out Tuesday's edition and the only travel related article I found was on Belgium spas, and no articles by Jane Costello.

It's journalistically RISKY. The reporter who lifts material from Flyertalk is effectively vouching for its accuracy. She has no clue as to who we posters are, or whether we're congenital liars. We may be publishing to the public domain here, and therefore risking further dissemination of our stories and views. But if I were still a reporter I wouldn't risk doing it. If I were an editor and found my reporters were pulling unverified quotes from strange websites, I'd discipline them.

WSJ should have fact checked with you before using your name. It is common courtesy.

While I've never made it to the WSJ, I have been quoted in several publications. All involved either e-mail or phone follow-up. The only thing a journalist cannot guarantee is the actual text that may appear. Editors have the final say.

My favorites:
- in Conde Nast Traveler several years ago, I commented on how the airlines entice you with special luxuries to get you to book a flight with them. In this case United had been promoting their new biz class service - connoisseur class - with new reclining seats and noise canceling headphones. My comment was that unless you check beforehand, not all flights leaving SFO were equipped thusly, and that my headphones squealed instead of canceling the noise. My sennheisers did a much better job.

My point was that you may not get the level of service you paid for, and the airline really only guarantees getting you from point A to point B. Not the level of service!

I had no real complaint to United, though, as I knew service wasn't always what the glossy brochures proclaimed.

I suggested to the writer that United should give vouchers or a credit AUTOMATICALLY when level of service is not what is advertised.

So...
- remember the last time your seat did not recline (or reclined slowly and automatically)
- the headphone jack did not work
- your special meal somehow disappeared, though confirmed
- your aisle seat somehow was in the middle of the row
- your seatmate shared your seat, too

M2 in OR

Oh, absolutely it's different -- hugely different. As a tangible expression, this is all copyrighted material, individually by the individual writers, and in aggregate by FlyerTalk.*

There is an enormous gap between "public forum" and "public domain".

(*That's the default state of affairs for something like this -- it may be modified by contract, e.g. the one we all assented to when we got our FlyerTalk IDs, the particulars of which I don't recall. It may be that we assigned all rights to Randy.)

She was very polite in her emails to me, but these were only to set up a subsequent telephone call which never happened. The call didn't happen because of my schedule.

However, her politeness does not alter the fact that she (IMO) acted inappropriately as a journalist representing such an esteemed organ as the WSJ.

Anyway, my point here is not about legal rights and wrongs, or journalistic rights and wrongs, but just about good old common decency in the way we treat each other.

There is a big difference between seeing the Eiffel Tower fall down with your own eyes, and reporting that it happened -- and reading an assertion on the web that the Eiffel Tower just fell down, and reporting that it happened. The first gets you a Pulitzer; the second gets you fired.

Jane emailed me once and we followed up with a telephone call. She was very polite and I was satisfied with the resulting article (which, by-the-way, only made it into the on-line version, I think).

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/002750.html

I just saw another print article by her this week quoting a FT-er. Hopefully she got the permission of the individual involved. If not out of necessity/integrity, then out of courtesy. (Think what would have happened if she wrote an article quoting someone (like jag) who turned out to be using a false identity!)

So you're in that article about cell phones lost on airplanes? And those quotes used were sentences you wrote here on FT and not spoken directly with Jane Costello?

Did I get that right?

If it makes you feel any better, you were portrayed in a favorable and sympathetic light. In other words, there was no hatchet job done on you. It does seem odd that your permission was not asked.

johnndor;

Can you tell me what the subject of the recent article was? I spoke to her RE: "elite for sale" and I would certainly put myself in the camp of folks who found her to be very forthright, courteous, honest and ethical.

We over at CO board have been waiting to see if an article she was researching on changes to the OnePass program materialized-- that wasn't the article, was it, by any chance?

BTW, FWIW and I certainly don't speak for him, in any way, shape or form but I think Randy considers Jane Costello a friend of FT-- that was my impression.

Yes, you are correct. The "Quotes" were lifted from FT, the factual errors are hers alone.



[This message has been edited by yyz-den (edited 08-09-2001).]

I have had e-mail and phone contacts with more than one WSJ reporters, including Jane, and they have been very professional in their dealings.

But in any case, one does not have any rights to any information that you post here! WSJ or any other person can use whatever you disclose here elsewhere without permission. And even if she did not interview you, there is no problem reporting something factual (using Bearx220's example) e.g XYZ, a Delta ff who posts in Flyertalk re the recent fare sale said "It is a joke."

In my experiences, however, journalists do make contacts both out of necessity (fact-checking) and courtesy.

I was quoted in an article by Jane when the Kellogg's promotion first started. She asked my permission as I recall, and we had a phone conversation. I think if someone's real name is quoted but gotten from the profile and our permission is not asked, it feels like an invasion of privacy and compromises our feelings of safety in expressing ourselves. I think she made a mistake, and perhaps by virtue of the planned conversation that didn't take place, assumed consent which you in fact didn't give her. Perhaps a letter directly to her would rectify the situation.

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DtG

The following is not a legal advice. I am not an attorney. However, I wanted to correct a common perception that keeps coming up in terms of copyright of electronic posts on these boards.

As lairdb pointed out earlier, posting here DOES NOT imply putting your writing in public domain. FT claims ownership to the copyright (as opposed to being in public domain) purely as a result of any terms of agreement that assign the handle to post to this board.

The contract that gives a handle to participate in these boards has the following section which implies that the posts are owned by the board. I am not sure if this has been tested in courts or will withstand legal scrutiny.

The reason I say this is because of my reading of a related but not directly similar case. Recently courts ruled that print media did not get electronic rights assigned to them (huge liabilities for press that sold articles written by authors for print media in an electronic form). It is conceivable that a prolific poster who wishes to publish a book solely based on her/his posts can claim true copyright to that material as opposed to Randy or this board. If I were on the jury and if the law was not clear, I would side with the author.

Also, morally if not legally, if the board owners claim a right to the copyright to all material they could also be held liable for consequences in certain cases. My guess is that the ownership is claimed for practical reasons to "excerpt" in other media owned by Randy and Co. and not to commercialize individual writings. Wholesale use of a prolific posters writings may require a whole different treatment.

I also noticed that most of the times, the remedy for violating guidelines is deleting of the post or handle and NOT editing of the post which is more in the spirit of respecting authorship.

------------ excerpts from the policies displayed during registration -----

Who owns my post?

For the sake of simplicity, we'd say that we own anything posted on FlyerTalk. Our reasoning is that we have the power to edit or delete any such post if we, representing the community, find it provides more harm than value to FlyerTalk. Also, if a member decides they no longer want to participate in the community, we would find it difficult to go into the database and delete each post an individual had made. Excerpts from posts to FlyerTalk may appear in InsideFlyer magazines, books, or other materials.

JonNYC -

As Analise pointed out (although only a minute before you) the article in print this week was about cell phones left on airlines.

I am somewhat confused---you say someone from the WSJ read you your quotes over the phone...that is called fact checking. How could they call you unless you gave them your phone number when they contacted you to talk about your post and your opinion on the matter?

That's a normal part of interviewing---you agreed to talk with them about the issue.

If you indeed did say that the quote was yours, you were saying "yes, that's what I feel about this issue. These are my thoughts and my opinion on the matter." If a quote is attributed to you and you never made the comment, either in written or verbal form, that's a whole different matter.

As for sending a copy of the story--please don't expect ANY reporter to send you a copy of their story for editorial approval prior to publication. That's just not the way it's done, except in very special situations.

[This message has been edited by joanek (edited 08-10-2001).]

As one of the old-timers on this board I'd like to add another positve word for Ms. Costello. She asked for, and was given my permission to use my name and quote my comments when I talked with her about an article she was writing last year. My opinion is that she was professional and accurate.

I TOTALLY agree with Joan. Jane apparently saw your post, contacted you, you exchanged ideas (via email, I'm assuming) and Jane used them. Since you apparently did NOT specifically ask to NOT have your name used, your ideas were attributed.

Bottom line: if you dont want your name in the newspaper either:
a) dont talk to reporters, or;
b) if you simply cannot avoid a., proactively insist that your name not be used..

IMHO, it appears that Jane did nothing wrong.

I thought reporters had to (if not had to, then should as a courtesy) ask "may I quote you on this".

mileagerunner said:

Only on TV and movies. When a reporter talks to you with your permission, EVERYTHING is "on the record."

Joanek:

I think perhaps if you were to read the whole thread you would realize that it was me who called WSJ after the publication. As I had not seen the article, the person (not Jane) read the relevant portion to me over the phone. It was not Jane fact-checking, the article had already been published. I only found out about it because another FT'er emailed to tell me.

kokonutz:

Thank you for agreeing with me, that has been the whole point of this thread, I DID NOT SPEAK TO A REPORTER.

Perhaps if you read the thread, rather than (apparently) basing your opinion on one totally 'out to lunch' post, you may get a better perspective.

From the beginning, let me note that I am a journalist myself -- and that I've also dealt with Jane Costello of the Journal and she's one of the 'good guys'; both her reporting and her writing have always been comfortably within the canons of ethics of our profession. I haven't seen the specific story, but from what I've read here, that's also true in this instance.

Now Mileagerunner asked:

And Boilermaker replied:

To which I'll concur -- when a reporter is talking to you in their professional capacity then you are being interviewed and the purpose of an interview is to get information AND quotes. The question "may I talk with you about this subject" includes the "may I quote you on this" question as well.

If you do not want to be quoted, either do not give the interview or use the magic words "this is on background" or "this is off the record."

There is a difference between the two -- "background" means the reporter can use the information to get leads to other sources or to confirm information already obtained from other sources but the reporter should not attribute it or quote from it. "Off the record" means a willingness to talk but nothing from the conversation can be used directly. Although hopefully an off the record conversation will give the reporter a deeper understanding of a topic that will help them research and write a better story using other sources that can be attributed or quoted.

Like any profession, there are both bad apples and plain incompetents carrying press passes. But most of us are not trying to manipulate either the story or the people we deal with. The goal of a journalist should be and usually is accurately conveying to the readers, viewers or listeners the "5W's and an H" they teach in J-school: "Who, What, When, Where Why and How."

If a reporter's copy comes out differently than you thought it would, that's what sometimes happens when a third person hears both sides of a story. Or, as the old reporter's axiom holds, 'you know you're doing your job right when both sides hate your guts.'

Sorry if I misunderstood you---but when I read "I had the relevant bits read to me over the phone," I presumed that this was during a conversation with someone at the WSJ prior to the publication. There wasn't any indication that YOU contacted THEM AFTER publication.

On the other hand, you write that you did have email discussions with her about the topic, and that's really no different than a phone interview.

[This message has been edited by joanek (edited 08-10-2001).]

I think the point is that all of the discussion (e-mail or phone) happened after the article had already been published.

If Ms. Costello had phoned or e-mailed yyz-den before she wrote the article, it's likely we'd have no controversy or offended feelings at all.

Well, yyz, if you would give all the facts of the situation rather then letting them dribble out over the course of the thread, it might be easier to comment on your situation.

I am reading your posts to say that you DID exchange e-mails with Jane before the story was published. Of course, I am not privvy to those conversations, but in that sense, I would say that yes, you WERE talking to a reporter. This all makes your first post in this thread seem somewhat disingenuous.

The burden is NOT on the reporter to get permission to print something one says or writes. To the contrary, the burden is on the speaker/writer to make it clear that something is "off the record." Perhaps knowing this you can avoid getting into this situation again.

As for people quoting directly from FT, why would one write something on a 'public' forum that they would be embarassed to have attributed to themselves. What exactly IS the difference between something being published here or in the WSJ? The thoughts are out in the marketplace of ideas. If you dont care to be associated with the thoughts, dont bring them to the marketplace, IMHO...

[This message has been edited by kokonutz (edited 08-10-2001).]

Hmm, I thought that the very first thing written was quite clear.

she took a quote from one of my posts, and found out who I am (not too difficult as I don't hide).

She then published my real name, the (out of context) quote, where I live, where I work, and what I do for a living - ALL WITHOUT MY PERMISSION in an article that appeared on Aug 07.


I think that there is a serious issue here about who has rights to the content - is it the original writer, is it FlyerTalk, or is it nobody?

PG: it is NOT AT ALL clear to me that the way Jane found out the personal info was not by ASKING for it in an email...

But even if there was no contact prior to publication and Jane did hire a Private Investigator to get YYZ's personal info, I stand by my 'marketplace of ideas' comments.

[This message has been edited by kokonutz (edited 08-10-2001).]

I see some misinformation here.

Copyright law allows you fair use. In other words, a publication or individual is allowed to quote a reasonable portion of your work, even if it is copyrighted.

In general, on the internet "you own your own words." That is, if you wrote a post and found it reproduced at great length, you might feel your rights were violated. At that point you might take action although you would face a steep hurdle.

As far as the idea that FlyerTalk maintains they own the copyright on what you post - well, perhaps they have the right to use your posts as they see fit, but if you felt your rights were violated, believe me, it would be your fight (and should you post something someone had a legal problem with, the liability would be yours as well).

As far as the reporter's actions, well, they are sloppy but that's about it. Also, newspapers do not generally fact-check - they do not have time. That is common practice. Some magazines do so and some other media such as television as well.

I'm with Kokonutz on this one. If you don't want your personal thoughts shared in a broader forum -- whether that forum is Flyertalk or the WSJ -- don't post them. Just keep them in your head. If you are coming to this board to post, then provide good information and don't complain if people share it. After all, if you don't want it shared, then keep your mouth shut and your fingers off your keyboard.