All of those are reasonable options. The money Ben paid to sources would go a long way towards hiring a professional—it’s almost as much as I make in my (part-time) journalism-adjacent work in a year.
Like I say, I’m not averse to citizen journalism and it would be incredibly hypocritical of me if I was. There’s a lot amateurs can do in this sort of thing, but I think it requires willingness to act as something other than prosecutor—or, if you see yourself only able to act as prosecutor, to provide your evidence to a neutral third party who can get the other side of things.
Electing a group puts a lot of pressure on that group, but it’s approximately what any large enough organization seems to do to handle misconduct allegations and has the advantage of allowing clear and predictable structure.
Most people in Ben’s shoes won’t have access to resources like those of Lightcone. So I think that is more a response to a narrower version of Peter’s question (what someone similarly situated to Ben and Oli should do in an analogous situation) than it is to the broader reading of the question.
It’s not clear to me how much professional time would have been needed for a full and fair investigation of this matter; do you have a sense of what the going rate for work like this would be?
I don’t, no. Obviously it could stretch almost arbitrarily high, but I expect there are competent people who would tackle it for $50-$100/hour, for example. It’s also pretty common for journalists who take interest in a topic to pursue it of their own initiative, but they have their own incentives and work (indeed, must work) towards different goals than the people who tip them off to things.
The broader reading is hard to answer because people vary wildly in their skills, interests, and resources. If I were advising myself, for example, I would say “Start poking around and see what pops up,” because that’s what I’ve always done. If I were advising someone with lots of money but little time, I would say “Spend your money to find someone with more time,” because that seems like a pretty universal problem-solver. If I were advising someone with a large public presence, I would say “Call in a few favors from people you know,” because reputation is power.
Let’s go for the purest case, though: a random community member with little experience, money, or presence. The most important thing is finding somebody credible who has those. You can try tipping leads to trustworthy journalists (yeah yeah, I know) who operate close to that area, sharing concerns in private with more influential members of your community to see if any of them can lead things off, or simply saying whatever you have hard evidence of in a public forum and seeing where it leads. The ultimate goal is, I’d say, always to find someone with the time and capacity to look into things in depth and with balance, as much as is realistic given the situation. That can be a pretty constrained group, which is why large organizations usually end up having dedicated positions for that sort of thing, but that’s the ideal.
I have many other investigations I would like to see happen, so if there is a way to buy this as a service, in a way that will produce decent investigations, then I would very gladly pay substantial sums of my personal money for this.
We did go around and ask many other people whether they would be willing to take on this investigation, all of which declined, but we didn’t explore the option of paying a large sum directly for this, and I at least don’t have any contacts for people I expect would be willing to do this.
If you have any references to people who could be paid to do this kind of work in a high-integrity way, I would really love to be put in touch with them.
The answer I’m tempted towards is, of course, “Me”—for things that can be done remotely, at least. It’s something I’ve done professionally only in the context of podcast production and I don’t want to claim extraordinary experience or overstate my qualifications, but I do think I have a few unusual traits that make me well-suited for that sort of thing and it’s a process I take seriously.
Part of why I hesitate there is that I can’t do anything near-future (next five months or so) due to my commitments and don’t want to throw my hat in a ring where I’m too busy to ever do anything, but it’s a general style of work I enjoy and am open to.
I prefer to do more than idly self-promote, though—I’ll consider the question further.
I think paying a friendly outsider would be the best option. I don’t expect I have much say in this, since I don’t have much spare money, so I will not be the one heiring. But I would like TracingWoodsgrains to look into the Nonlinear story.
All of those are reasonable options. The money Ben paid to sources would go a long way towards hiring a professional—it’s almost as much as I make in my (part-time) journalism-adjacent work in a year.
Like I say, I’m not averse to citizen journalism and it would be incredibly hypocritical of me if I was. There’s a lot amateurs can do in this sort of thing, but I think it requires willingness to act as something other than prosecutor—or, if you see yourself only able to act as prosecutor, to provide your evidence to a neutral third party who can get the other side of things.
Electing a group puts a lot of pressure on that group, but it’s approximately what any large enough organization seems to do to handle misconduct allegations and has the advantage of allowing clear and predictable structure.
Most people in Ben’s shoes won’t have access to resources like those of Lightcone. So I think that is more a response to a narrower version of Peter’s question (what someone similarly situated to Ben and Oli should do in an analogous situation) than it is to the broader reading of the question.
It’s not clear to me how much professional time would have been needed for a full and fair investigation of this matter; do you have a sense of what the going rate for work like this would be?
I don’t, no. Obviously it could stretch almost arbitrarily high, but I expect there are competent people who would tackle it for $50-$100/hour, for example. It’s also pretty common for journalists who take interest in a topic to pursue it of their own initiative, but they have their own incentives and work (indeed, must work) towards different goals than the people who tip them off to things.
The broader reading is hard to answer because people vary wildly in their skills, interests, and resources. If I were advising myself, for example, I would say “Start poking around and see what pops up,” because that’s what I’ve always done. If I were advising someone with lots of money but little time, I would say “Spend your money to find someone with more time,” because that seems like a pretty universal problem-solver. If I were advising someone with a large public presence, I would say “Call in a few favors from people you know,” because reputation is power.
Let’s go for the purest case, though: a random community member with little experience, money, or presence. The most important thing is finding somebody credible who has those. You can try tipping leads to trustworthy journalists (yeah yeah, I know) who operate close to that area, sharing concerns in private with more influential members of your community to see if any of them can lead things off, or simply saying whatever you have hard evidence of in a public forum and seeing where it leads. The ultimate goal is, I’d say, always to find someone with the time and capacity to look into things in depth and with balance, as much as is realistic given the situation. That can be a pretty constrained group, which is why large organizations usually end up having dedicated positions for that sort of thing, but that’s the ideal.
I have many other investigations I would like to see happen, so if there is a way to buy this as a service, in a way that will produce decent investigations, then I would very gladly pay substantial sums of my personal money for this.
We did go around and ask many other people whether they would be willing to take on this investigation, all of which declined, but we didn’t explore the option of paying a large sum directly for this, and I at least don’t have any contacts for people I expect would be willing to do this.
If you have any references to people who could be paid to do this kind of work in a high-integrity way, I would really love to be put in touch with them.
Good question. Let me think on it.
The answer I’m tempted towards is, of course, “Me”—for things that can be done remotely, at least. It’s something I’ve done professionally only in the context of podcast production and I don’t want to claim extraordinary experience or overstate my qualifications, but I do think I have a few unusual traits that make me well-suited for that sort of thing and it’s a process I take seriously.
Part of why I hesitate there is that I can’t do anything near-future (next five months or so) due to my commitments and don’t want to throw my hat in a ring where I’m too busy to ever do anything, but it’s a general style of work I enjoy and am open to.
I prefer to do more than idly self-promote, though—I’ll consider the question further.
I think paying a friendly outsider would be the best option. I don’t expect I have much say in this, since I don’t have much spare money, so I will not be the one heiring. But I would like TracingWoodsgrains to look into the Nonlinear story.