O'Gara and Groklaw/PJ

Groklaw privacy spat ends Linux Business News column

I’m a pretty faithful reader of Groklaw and just today became aware of the issues regarding Maureen O’Gara writing private information about Pamela Jones, creator and author of Groklaw. I’ve linked to the above story as it contains links to O’Gara’s original story and also PJ’s reply, amongst other things.

This whole thing is messy, and this story from Declan McCullaugh seems to be pretty fair – although, IMHO his bias shines through in the title and the closing sentence (I’ve been known to be wrong, keep in mind). But that’s not the issue at hand.

I believe in freedom of the press. They have a right to write stories, as long as those stories are true. I don’t know whether or not O’Gara’s account of PJ is true, and I’m not particularly concerned if it is. I am, however, concerned with her posting private information about PJ – specifically her address and the address of her family members. It is my personal understanding that such information can not be provided in an article without consent of the person(s) involved (please correct me if I’m wrong). I believe that Sys-con Media made the correct choice in removing O’Gara’s column, I believe that PJ is likely to have a legal case against O’Gara, and I believe that O’Gara has crossed a line between professional journalism and mudslinging.

I will support PJ in whatever ways possible, as she deserves to be supported. She has done a great service to the open source community, and where she lives, her religious beliefs, etc. is not important to what she does. She provides her professional opinion (and has always stated it as such) and along with links to and text transcriptions of various legal documents. Everything she says regarding the SCO v. IBM case she provides all the factual information for. She’s being as professional as can be expected from someone posting their professional interpretation of the facts (which is what everyone should read it as) for others to consider.

With all of this in mind, her personal life is not important. Just as I don’t care about O’Gara’s personal life or possible connections to SCO or whatever other conspiracy theories are out there.

Media literacy really needs to be improved; especially with blogging (what I’m doing right now :P) becoming so popular. People have to be able to read between the lines, understand any bias the writer may have, and find the truth that’s buried in the message. Then decide for yourselves what to believe – don’t take someones word as truth just because they sound intelligent.