[philwelch]

Sarah Lacy is hardly a reliable witness. The whole reason she got involved is because Emil Michael got frustrated with her hit pieces. And if your claim to fame is writing hit pieces, of course an incident like this is going to land right in your wheelhouse and you're going to make hay of it.

Don't misunderstand me here--I just think there are two sides to this story, and both sides are assholes.

[acdha]

> Sarah Lacy is hardly a reliable witness. The whole reason she got involved is because Emil Michael got frustrated with her hit pieces

1) How does someone being annoyed by a story make the reporter unreliable?

2) Why would they be in full damage control mode over the earlier articles or this one if they weren't true?

[philwelch]

1) She was writing hit pieces on Uber before this incident and clearly has an axe to grind regarding that company. Of course she's going to milk this incident for all she can and react as uncharitably as possible. That's PandoDaily's business model.

2) The thing about bad PR is that it doesn't have to be true. Regardless, I'm not even talking about the basic facts reported by Buzzfeed. I'm talking about Sarah's interpretation of them as a threat against her children, which is unwarranted by the original report and likely her own sensationalism.

[acdha]

1. "Hit piece" is a loaded term. So far there's no reason to warrant it just because they wish she was channeling their PR department.

2. Again, we have no reason to think this isn't true - they're in damage control mode trying to say it wasn't serious but nobody is claiming that it wasn't a real quote. Much as you seem to be personally invested in attacking her credibility, it's simply not possible to seriously claim that "My family and my children" (her words) is a particularly unreasonable interpretation of a threat to investigate “your personal lives, your families” (his words). Even assuming the most likely interpretation that the threat was to expose something about an adult (past legal mishaps, an affair, etc.) some of the most significant damage from those attacks would be suffered by children who don't really understand why their parents are being targeted.

[philwelch]

I think Sarah's sensationalizing it because sensationalizing things is her business. That's all.

[tripzilch]

Let's assume that the Uber Executive was also doing his business then.

Seems to me very clear that one's quite a bit deeper in the wrong than the other, "doing their business".

(also, I disagree with the term "sensationalizing" when the facts of what actually happened are in fact already "sensational" enough to stand for themselves. Stating that you're worried about your children when someone calls to investigate and dig dirt on "your personal lives, your families" isn't really adding any extra "sensation" to what is already out on the table, it merely informs me that she has children to worry about)

[philwelch]

To "dig dirt" means to gather embarrassing private information about someone that could ruin their reputation. Exactly what information could you gather to embarass and discredit a small child? There's no logical way to interpret that as a threat against Sarah's kids, and I'm giving Sarah the benefit of assuming she's clever enough to realize that. Sarah brought her own damn kids into this to tug at the audience's heartstrings and make herself look more sympathetic.

[scarmig]

Isn't it a clearly established principle of journalism that reporters should report only for the benefit of the people and organizations they're reporting on?

If she wasn't kowtowing to Kalanick's PR team, she was remiss and doubtlessly only hunting for page views. Definitely had it coming--turnabout is fair play.