I think that’s a pretty fair point but a bit overstated? I don’t think arbitrary EAs have that much to worry about here, I think it’s mainly just people with a more direct connection to the events. That’s certainly not a small group, but I’m not sure it’s a “large fraction of the people writing on this Forum” either. And again, I think we all generally know who we are and know that that implies we should be cautious when talking to journalists.
That said I certainly don’t think it would hurt for everyone writing on this Forum to explicitly confirm that they’re off the record when talking to any journalists for the next few weeks. I don’t see doing so as very costly at all.
Not in my experience. In the past couple of days, a former housemate of a couple of months, who is now a journalist, reached out to a mutual friend asking to be put in touch with any EA people she knew, as she’s writing a piece on the impact of the FTX stuff on EA (AFAIK she knows very little about EA).
I have nothing to do with the current events, but IMO journalists will definitely mine their social networks to get content from anyone even tangentially related to the events, if that’s the closest they can get.
I should maybe have been clearer. When talking to a random journalist you don’t know, I think it’s pretty obvious that you should confirm whether you’re on the record or not. I was more trying to address the concern about whether things are newsworthy when talking to friends who also happen to be journalists. Journalists have beats, and most journalists are not currently working any stories for which comments from random EAs are newsworthy. A few journalists are! And if you happen to be talking to those ones, then, yeah, exercise more caution.
I dunno I think people are just really overestimating the likelihood of getting “caught on the record” as a random EA. It’s hard to explain precisely why, but, if any EA who is totally unconnected to current events ends up with their words being published against their expectations I will be very surprised. Happy to bet against it happening at 4:1 odds (for relatively small amounts as it’s a bit hard to make the criteria ungameable).
I think that’s a pretty fair point but a bit overstated? I don’t think arbitrary EAs have that much to worry about here, I think it’s mainly just people with a more direct connection to the events. That’s certainly not a small group, but I’m not sure it’s a “large fraction of the people writing on this Forum” either. And again, I think we all generally know who we are and know that that implies we should be cautious when talking to journalists.
That said I certainly don’t think it would hurt for everyone writing on this Forum to explicitly confirm that they’re off the record when talking to any journalists for the next few weeks. I don’t see doing so as very costly at all.
Not in my experience. In the past couple of days, a former housemate of a couple of months, who is now a journalist, reached out to a mutual friend asking to be put in touch with any EA people she knew, as she’s writing a piece on the impact of the FTX stuff on EA (AFAIK she knows very little about EA).
I have nothing to do with the current events, but IMO journalists will definitely mine their social networks to get content from anyone even tangentially related to the events, if that’s the closest they can get.
I should maybe have been clearer. When talking to a random journalist you don’t know, I think it’s pretty obvious that you should confirm whether you’re on the record or not. I was more trying to address the concern about whether things are newsworthy when talking to friends who also happen to be journalists. Journalists have beats, and most journalists are not currently working any stories for which comments from random EAs are newsworthy. A few journalists are! And if you happen to be talking to those ones, then, yeah, exercise more caution.
I dunno I think people are just really overestimating the likelihood of getting “caught on the record” as a random EA. It’s hard to explain precisely why, but, if any EA who is totally unconnected to current events ends up with their words being published against their expectations I will be very surprised. Happy to bet against it happening at 4:1 odds (for relatively small amounts as it’s a bit hard to make the criteria ungameable).