Update II: Last night, Sunday April 5th, Lesley Stahl issued an on-air correction about her mistakes from the previous week’s story about Conficker. She called it a correction, but it wasn’t even that much. Here is the transcript of her apology which lasts all of about 21 seconds as a part of the introduction to Andy Rooney’s weekly blathering.

“A correction now. We made a mistake last week in using a photograph in a story we called “The Internet is Infected,” about the computer worm known as Conficker. I described the picture as a gang of young Russian hackers. They were not. The photo was provided to us by an Internet security company that appeared in the story.”

I have included below the video of the correction with the original piece just below. However, please note that I have had to include the original story from YouTube (I’ve only listed the second half) because CBS has edited the video on its website to cut any mention of the photo, any hacker by the name of Tempest and other things which were proven to be incorrect. The portion of edited video on CBS’s website occurs at the 10:36 mark. You can see the cut portion, lasting 19 seconds, in the YouTube video below.

But tell me, what should CBS have done in this circumstance? Instead of simply acknowledging the mistake, apologizing to the Finnish kids defamed in the story and moving on, the 60 Minutes team decided on a different route. They made a mistake, attempted to correct it but in the process also deleted any evidence of the mistake from their website. If CBS wants to be taken seriously as a news organization, this crap cannot continue. We know CNN falsifies transcripts and inputs video from Hungary in a story about Serbian rioting, but for CBS to now stoop to this level is unacceptable.

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The Internet is Infected, part 2:

A crew of reporters and producers working for Frontline has embarked on a new project called Digital_Nation. It is set to be broadcast either later this year or early 2010 and promises to be interesting, given the Frontline tag. We have covered there work extensively over the past year, but they are taking a different creative approach this time around. Instead of researching, writing, filming and producing the piece they are involving the public in the creative process. Encouraging dialogue, feedback and online interaction this report about how digital our lives has become is an ongoing experiment of great interest to me. It is one that crosses at the intersection of my work (IT consultancy) and my passion of writing about the media. So I’m sure to be involved as much as they will have me…

All of that being said, yesterday Jeff (one of the team members) asked the question on the project blog whether the mainstream media is too alarmist when it comes to technological issues. The post was centered around the 60 Minutes Conficker piece we wrote about here. To give you an idea of how popular this subject is, this one post was my post popular since starting this blog and writing over 130 posts in the last year. Jeff ended the post by asking a question:

“This brings me to my question: do technological issues like Conficker make it easier for the media to fear-monger? I would think that many people, and I include myself in this, don’t have a detailed understanding of how computer viruses work. The same could be said about many other technological issues. The media has a responsibility to report on the dangers of the Internet to help people avoid them, but when does it cross the line into alarmism about a subject most people don’t fully understand? Does the mainstream press do a fair job of explaining these technical issues so that we don’t overreact? Obviously, the mainstream media will always play to our fears to a certain degree, but is it worse when technology is involved?”

This was my response to him:

As you mentioned, media will always play to our fears because that is what sells (and it is the easy way out). Just turn on the 6 o’clock news for a prime example of laziness and shock. Jon Stewart had a great piece this week about how the media “teases” us with this fear.

Although I often believe in conspiracies, I don’t think the alarmist attitude is taken intentionally by the mainstream media. As you briefly mentioned, I think it is born from ignorance. Taking one example, we can see the full affect of ignorance at work.

The 60 Minutes report you mentioned was pitiful on many levels, but the scariest part was Lesley Stahl’s ignorance of the subject matter which lead her to interview people who were experts only in title and to therefore over-inflate the threat. Conficker is something to worry about, but it is nothing new or unique. None of these threats are new. However, because of the tremendous growth and spread of technology, little to no education has occurred to explain the dangers inherent in an online world. You wouldn’t just let a 16 year old drive a car without some instruction and yet we allow young and old alike to live and publish their lives online. Everything from personal, professional and financial is there for the world to see and it takes more than a week-long boot camp with Symantec to teach a reporter how to convey this message effectively and accurately.

The mainstream media has a tremendous opportunity in front of it to explain the inherent dangers AND the opportunities of a digital lifestyle, however it needs to go back to school if it hopes to deliver this message. Why do you think most people under 25-30 don’t rely on network television for their news? First, it is cumbersome and irrelevant, but more importantly if a satellite interview is needed to explain Twitter, how can we expect the media to effectively define privacy concerns? Perhaps if network television and newspapers were to fully report on this subject the way it should be reported, they would discover a new subscriber base.

What do you think?

UPDATE: Jeff has posted a response to my comment on the Digital_Nation blog, well worth a quick read. However, I have responded in kind with yet another note to his most recent post. Please note that these responses are certainly not meant to critisize the work that Jeff and the Frontline team are doing. I have done so in hopes of growing this conversation and perhaps increasing the interaction required of such an undertaking as Digital_Nation.

Certainly exciting to feel a part of this historical transformation, isn’t it? One quick note on your post: I would caution reporters (both yourselves and others) about getting too close to the subject matter. There is a difference between subject matter expertise and the interwoven reliance on the subject that affects how a story is reported. As we saw in the invasion of Iraq, Washington journalists were unable to question what some of us might have seen as obvious flaws in reason and rational simply because they were a part of the insider’s world of Washington politics. Glenn Greenwald has written extensively about this syndrome. There needs to be a balance between knowing one’s subject matter thoroughly, but not being dependent on it to the extent that one can’t see beyond it. Stepping back and taking stock is a beautiful thing for any of us to do, but an even more important exercise for reporters.

While reviewing some of the statistics on my last post about the CBS/Symantec agreement the scrare the crap out of us and dump on some Finnish school kids, I came across some interesting things. The most interesting being a Finnish BBS site that linked to my blog. There, people are discussing the 60 Minutes story, the Finnish kids in the picture and the actual Russian hackers. However, it appears that people are also posting Trojan Horses on the site as well. Just to be clear, if you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t click on random links with your computer. This is advice Lesley Stahl could have given on Sunday evening in her report and it would have made for a better broadcast than what she ended up with.

As a side note, if you think you might be infected with this nasty crap than go to this link from Symantec (given to me by an employee who works on the team in charge of this stuff) and have your stuff cleaned. Either that or make sure your backup is current and reformat your system. Have fun!!

http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2009-030614-5852-99&tabid=2

Disgusting. Absolutely and completely lazy, inaccurate journalism. That is the best way to describe this week’s episode of 60 Minutes on CBS. The idiocy runs so deep, I’m not sure I want to make this post as long as it could be. Lesley Stahl’s report on Internet worms, viruses and the evil-doers who spread them had more holes in it than the Bush administration’s claims of Iraq’s WMD program. Watch it for yourself, but please only take what is said with a grain of salt.

In my day job I’m in the technology industry, so I’m well aware of the problems viruses and worms and hackers and Russian gangsters can pose… Wait, Russian gangsters?!? As a number of people on CBS’ website have pointed out, the “Russians” shown in the program are actually from Finland, but those are merely facts not to worry 60 Minutes. But the real shady part about this report was the fact that not one government official was interviewed for it. We saw experts from Symantec, Google and SecureWorks, an online security firm, but not one from a qualified government official. Now, I understand that most of the expertise when it comes to technology and online security still resides in the private sector, but certainly Stahl could have interviewed the FBI Special Agent in Charge who worked undercover for three years on an Internet forum selling credit card numbers and other financial data with hackers around the world. Or perhaps one of the many, many experts who combat online terrorism in any one of the 15 security agencies within the United States alone. The reporting ended up as more of an infomercial designed to scare the crap out of the viewer and convince him or her to purchase some bloated piece of security software from Symantec which, admittedly doesn’t really do anything to protect you. In addition, the ignorance displayed by Stahl of the online world would be laughable, if it weren’t so scary. She was surprised someone could watch her typing in her information online? Does she live in a cave? I’m sorry to sound harsh on this one, but if you are going to do a report on Internet security some basic education should be required before attempting such a venture. We’ve written about 60 Minutes’ miscues before, but this time it is inexcusable.

Update: CBS has issued the following correction regarding the photo used. (However, they have yet to apologize for the thoroughly crappy reporting job. Don’t expect that one too soon.)

(CBS) A correction: 60 Minutes made a mistake in using a photograph in our story called “The Internet is Infected.” The picture was described in the story as a group of young Russian computer hackers which was inaccurate. The picture, provided to us by an Internet security company, had appeared on a Russian hacker magazine Web site.

Yesterday, 60 Minutes featured a profile of Pakistan and the challenges it faces. Although Steve Kroft gave a broad overview of the situation today, for anyone who has been paying attention, this was shallow reporting at best. Why, in a piece on the stability of Pakistan and the political factions at work, wouldn’t Kroft examine the different wings of the ISI and how, for the last 30 years, they have been working against each other to the detriment of the Pakistani society as a whole?

In addition, I wish news organizations (CBS is not alone in this) would more carefully define the words they use to describe things, instead of just repeating the buzz words of today. As we’ve mentioned before,

“It is true that definitions of war terms may change over time, but some things do not… Call it what it is, but don’t call a local fighting force rebelling an invasion “insurgents” (they are only insurgents if they don’t live there!) and don’t call bombing the shit out of children “defending the homeland” (that is always considered terrorism).”

Kroft used the term “Islamic insurgents” to describe the local Taliban and Al-Queda forces. With the exception of Al-Queda, these are people who have lived in this region for hundreds of years and who don’t believe in either the state of Pakistan, the state of Afghanistan or the border between them. If the US and our allies are so interested in curbing Islamic extremism, a basic history class in the origins and real forces at work might be in order. Unfortunately, I believe the people on the ground have full clarity of this distinction, but the decision-makers (and hence the reporters) don’t really have a clue.

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