Who is Melanie Rieback and Why Should You Care?
Melanie Rieback is an interesting figure. So important a figure in the RFID industry is Ms. Rieback that an assertion she made based on some recent research she did and a paper she wrote turned the RFID industry on its head this week... thanks in large part to The New York Times. The Times, essentially taking Ms. Rieback's assertions as gospel with little more than a cursory check with autoritative others, went with a story that since its arrival has been universally mocked by people everywhere who know better.
Now when you learn a bit more about Ms. Rieback's towering status in the industry, you'll likely get a better idea of what in the world The Times was thinking. Ready? Are you in a place where, if you fall over from this news, you won't land atop sharp objects or descend so far you'll break something? Here, from InformationWeek, is the operative sentence:
The paper, by Melanie Rieback, a third-year PhD student at Amsterdam's Vrije University, was presented at the IEEE conference in Pisa, Italy, on Wednesday (March 15), sent shock waves through the RFID industry. [underscore added for emphasis, as if any added emphasis were necessary]
Just a case of sloppy reporting? No way. The New York Times is a precision reporting machine with some of the best journalistic talents in the world. They don't often make mistakes. They don't have a history of sloppy reporting. They are the 'most respected' daily newspaper in the world for a reason.
Why this happened is a long story of little relevance to what we talk about here. But the short answer is this: This blog and thousands like it exist because individuals no longer trust the objectivity of the so-called elite media. In journalism school they taught all of us about objectivity. They said the mainstream press was, is, and always would be objective. They said this even though evidence existed everywhere around us that this was an illusion. The New York Times is not objective, but they say they are. This blog is 100% subjective -- but is not described otherwise. I'm biased and make no bones about it. The Times says it is objective and then goes about reporting in ways that support its biases -- hoping you'll buy the agenda hook line and sinker. Even if they have to use a third year grad student to make their point... even if they don't do a really good job of checking with others to make sure the facts add up.
Bottom line... don't believe everything you read, no matter where it shows up.
Now when you learn a bit more about Ms. Rieback's towering status in the industry, you'll likely get a better idea of what in the world The Times was thinking. Ready? Are you in a place where, if you fall over from this news, you won't land atop sharp objects or descend so far you'll break something? Here, from InformationWeek, is the operative sentence:
The paper, by Melanie Rieback, a third-year PhD student at Amsterdam's Vrije University, was presented at the IEEE conference in Pisa, Italy, on Wednesday (March 15), sent shock waves through the RFID industry. [underscore added for emphasis, as if any added emphasis were necessary]
Just a case of sloppy reporting? No way. The New York Times is a precision reporting machine with some of the best journalistic talents in the world. They don't often make mistakes. They don't have a history of sloppy reporting. They are the 'most respected' daily newspaper in the world for a reason.
Why this happened is a long story of little relevance to what we talk about here. But the short answer is this: This blog and thousands like it exist because individuals no longer trust the objectivity of the so-called elite media. In journalism school they taught all of us about objectivity. They said the mainstream press was, is, and always would be objective. They said this even though evidence existed everywhere around us that this was an illusion. The New York Times is not objective, but they say they are. This blog is 100% subjective -- but is not described otherwise. I'm biased and make no bones about it. The Times says it is objective and then goes about reporting in ways that support its biases -- hoping you'll buy the agenda hook line and sinker. Even if they have to use a third year grad student to make their point... even if they don't do a really good job of checking with others to make sure the facts add up.
Bottom line... don't believe everything you read, no matter where it shows up.
posted by Dave at Saturday, March 18, 2006
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