FWIW some people are acting like the social rules around on vs. off the record are obvious and Sam should have known, but the rules are not obvious to me, and this sort of thing makes me reluctant to talk to any friends who are journalists.
I sort of agree with you, but I also think that Sam had much more experience talking to journalists than either of us do and so it’s more reasonable to say that he should have known how this works.
It takes about a minute of googling to find an article that reasonably accurately clarifies what is meant by “on the record”, “background”, and “off the record”. The social rule is that when speaking to a journalist about anything remotely newsworthy (if unsure, assume it is), you’re on the record unless you say you’d rather not be and the journalist explicitly agrees.
The rules aren’t self-evident, they’re just well-known among people who need to know them. People are acting like Sam should have known because he has been actively engaging with the press for years now, has consulted with PR professionals, etc. The idea that these rules have not been explained to him clearly and repeatedly is vanishingly unlikely to the point of being laughable.
There’s no reason to be reluctant to talk to journalist friends about non-newsworthy stuff, and the vast majority of things normal people talk to their friends about are not newsworthy. If you want to talk to a journalist friend about something that might be newsworthy, it’s as easy as just saying “off the record, yeah?” and them responding “yeah of course.” Takes five seconds and is really not an issue.
I’m not saying Sam didn’t know he was on the record. I’m saying I, personally, don’t understand when I should expect to be on or off the record, and you saying it’s obvious doesn’t make me understand. Saying “newsworthy” doesn’t help because I don’t always know what’s newsworthy, and it’s basically tautological anyway.
And Kelsey’s tweets show that journalists don’t even agree on what the rules are, namely, some believe it’s ok to quote something that the interviewee says is off the record, and others (like Kelsey) say it’s not. If they disagree about this, they probably also disagree about other things. Even if I know the social rules according to one journalist, that doesn’t mean I can safely talk to a different journalist because they might be following different rules.
If your journalist friends are good friends, maybe you could agree with them that all of your conversations are off the record by default, and they have to ask if they want to put anything on the record (and maybe even get that in writing just in case?). And then only remind them of this if you want to talk about something that readily comes to mind as being potentially sensitive/newsworthy.
I don’t know you personally so I can’t say whether this applies to you specifically, but: the vast majority of people do not say newsworthy things to their friends basically ever. I really don’t think it makes sense to feel anxious about this or change your behaviour based on a (former?) multi-billionaire’s DMs getting published. Almost everyone who is in the reference class of “people who need to worry about this” is aware that they are in that reference class.
Almost everyone who is in the reference class of “people who need to worry about this” is aware that they are in that reference class.
Fwiw, my guess is that a large fraction of the people writing on this Forum are suddenly and unwittingly in that reference class. So while I may agree with your literal statement, I want to emphasize and underline that the relevant implications are not very strong for this forum, especially now.
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).
FWIW some people are acting like the social rules around on vs. off the record are obvious and Sam should have known, but the rules are not obvious to me, and this sort of thing makes me reluctant to talk to any friends who are journalists.
I sort of agree with you, but I also think that Sam had much more experience talking to journalists than either of us do and so it’s more reasonable to say that he should have known how this works.
It takes about a minute of googling to find an article that reasonably accurately clarifies what is meant by “on the record”, “background”, and “off the record”. The social rule is that when speaking to a journalist about anything remotely newsworthy (if unsure, assume it is), you’re on the record unless you say you’d rather not be and the journalist explicitly agrees.
The rules aren’t self-evident, they’re just well-known among people who need to know them. People are acting like Sam should have known because he has been actively engaging with the press for years now, has consulted with PR professionals, etc. The idea that these rules have not been explained to him clearly and repeatedly is vanishingly unlikely to the point of being laughable.
There’s no reason to be reluctant to talk to journalist friends about non-newsworthy stuff, and the vast majority of things normal people talk to their friends about are not newsworthy. If you want to talk to a journalist friend about something that might be newsworthy, it’s as easy as just saying “off the record, yeah?” and them responding “yeah of course.” Takes five seconds and is really not an issue.
I’m not saying Sam didn’t know he was on the record. I’m saying I, personally, don’t understand when I should expect to be on or off the record, and you saying it’s obvious doesn’t make me understand. Saying “newsworthy” doesn’t help because I don’t always know what’s newsworthy, and it’s basically tautological anyway.
And Kelsey’s tweets show that journalists don’t even agree on what the rules are, namely, some believe it’s ok to quote something that the interviewee says is off the record, and others (like Kelsey) say it’s not. If they disagree about this, they probably also disagree about other things. Even if I know the social rules according to one journalist, that doesn’t mean I can safely talk to a different journalist because they might be following different rules.
If your journalist friends are good friends, maybe you could agree with them that all of your conversations are off the record by default, and they have to ask if they want to put anything on the record (and maybe even get that in writing just in case?). And then only remind them of this if you want to talk about something that readily comes to mind as being potentially sensitive/newsworthy.
I don’t know you personally so I can’t say whether this applies to you specifically, but: the vast majority of people do not say newsworthy things to their friends basically ever. I really don’t think it makes sense to feel anxious about this or change your behaviour based on a (former?) multi-billionaire’s DMs getting published. Almost everyone who is in the reference class of “people who need to worry about this” is aware that they are in that reference class.
Fwiw, my guess is that a large fraction of the people writing on this Forum are suddenly and unwittingly in that reference class. So while I may agree with your literal statement, I want to emphasize and underline that the relevant implications are not very strong for this forum, especially now.
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).