It is a place where journalists discuss, debate, and analyze the factual validity of claims made in the mainstream press, blogs, and user-generated content. It is an open forum, one that is often quoted by the press at large. One should assume that their contributions are on the record and may be quoted at any given time, as they have been in the past (with grammar mistakes, typos, informal writing styles, and all). This is not a private chat room, and to my knowledge those who have been quoted in the past, including me, have never been asked for permission because this is a public space built in part for that very purpose.

As such, any disagreements that play out here are, in fact, completely public.

If I were an editor of a news agency which has published an article that has been prolifically commented on and analyzed in a forum where journalists do prep work for their stories, I would expect my comments to be made public. It may not be pleasant, but it is what it is.

As far as this story is concerned, an editor for RT, Ivor Crotty, was fully aware that there were significant concerns about a series of stories RT was running. Rather than leave no comment (which would have forced me to seek comment) Ivor decided to leave a comment. His comment indicated that he was impressed by the criticism that was brought up in the forum. He made no attempt to clarify the facts presented by RT, nor did he disagree with any points made by the critics of RT. He also stated that he was discussing this with his staff. That comment was posted in a news story about RT's failure to do due diligence on an article, and full context was given. No additional comment was sought because comment was already sought, and given.

As for the factual validity of this article, it, and RT's work, speaks for itself in this regard.

And they should be questioned, and not only specifically with regard to Ivor, but in general because here and elsewhere, they show by their frequent behaviour that they heckle and intimidate critics, second-guess people's good will, invoke "Cold War or "non-collegial" behaviour, shed tears about being misunderstand, inject drama, etc. all in the pursuit of keeping the propaganda machine intact. That's why having seen this scenario play out a thousand times in a thousand ways in this field in 35 years,  I'm actually for not inviting them into groups like this. I think the way you keep openness open is not by inviting in its actual closers.  Let them form their own alternative open news room then and let multiplicity and pluralism and debate be achieved that way.

Of course — just as they always hope by using open society's very values against it — the Kremlin's propagandists, as they did in the Soviet era, then begin to whine that the BBC is state-funded; that the VOA is state-funded, why, how ever could you define this difficult thing! Why, even Washpo is funded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon which is in the pocket of the USG if it refuses to store stolen classified cables from WikiLeaks and is therefore state propaganda all the same – blah blah blah — and the argument never ceases.

To which I can say — well, you're real journalists, you know what real journalism is, so don't have such trouble kicking out non-real journalists. Who defend the publication of fake pictures and fake stories in pursuit of the higher goal of sinister foreign policy.

If this were just a chat group about the news, you might welcome anybody, even state news outlets. But it's supposed to be a very serious collaborative effort by professional journalists to analyze the news-gathering process. By saying RT.com or others like Al Jazeera on other stories can come along for the ride, you are abandoning your independence in a serious and troubling way. You think the exigencies of online social media collaboration require this; I beg to differ. There's a big difference between collaboration, and collectivization by RT.com

I view this problem exactly the same as the problem of pro-Moscow activists in the peace movement or human rights movements in the 1960s-1980s and no different than the CND/END issues Felim may be more familiar with. You were not required to make a common front with communists in the past in order to have a credible peace movement and you are not required to make common cause with the Kremlin in any fashion today in allowing preposterous fabrication of a serious news story of a fake massacre to have an open newsroom operation.

You know, the Communists have always been saying "let's all come round now" and the Kremlin's version of it today is no different. "Let the intellectuals in the cafe shut up, they should stop arguing, they should just go and help bring in the harvest in the countryside with the People. They should keep their eye on the Big Picture, which is that we must all bring in the harvest."

Sorry, this line of argumentation is as old as the hills in the Russian business if not the Open News business. But this is your game, not mine. : )  There's little one can do against the overwhelming power of the Kremlin but one thing you can do is deny it legitimacy. I simply refuse to confer legitimacy on this sort of thing, and you can then do the Open Newsroom without me if rather than forcing me to legitimize it, if accepting a Kumbayah circles with Ivor is a requirement. It sounds to me like it is.

I'd like simply to see another Open Newsroom spring up beside this one with its perspective, and have another perspective of what the Big Picture is. I'm a new and not very active member of this group and feel absolutely no requirement to be in it to do my various jobs. News gets discussed openly in lots of other places. James may decide otherwise simply because he has a lot more to discuss on Syria and may be willing to tolerate a perspective on the very organizing principles he doesn't like just for the sake of the discussion.

If you think giving your news investigations queries away to the Russian state and its intelligence organs is all part of being transparent, that's how it is. If you also think that you need to subject the verification process of dodgy Russian propaganda news stories to the Russian state and its intelligence agencies themselves, that's problematic because it means that each time you start a good-faith effort like "Let's see if this Syrian massacre story is fake," you have a real enemy of the truth in your midst who will constantly harry and harass, and you will constantly have to address that either by accommodation or cooptation, which you seem to have chosen, or by resistance, which you seem reluctant to engage in, because you fear that your own values of fairness and openness will be invoked against you. And that's how how the secret police always wins. I think that's wrong.

Ultimately, it's not me or anyone else who identifies RT.com as the enemy of good journalism and the enemy of openness in the Open Newsroom, it's RT.com itself by its behaviour you've seen on display here in dealing with this story. Russia Today does not have "editorial leanings," Felim, and to use that disingenuous expression about a malign state propaganda organ that maliciously faked a massacre story not to mention many other outrageous acts is to deprive the phrase of its meaning.

One of the most important things that the primary contributors to ONR look for in a story is the track record of the sources, and so it may not be pleasant, but a conversation about RT's journalistic practices is completely relevant to the aims of this room. The allegation that this article of mine (have you all read it?) is an attack on Ivor is misplaced. In fact, Ivor's name does not appear until 2/3rds of the way through the article, and the discussion of Ivor makes up 5% of a 2899 word article. The focus of the article was specifically the claims made by RT that a massacre occurred in Adra. 3 weeks since the incident, there is not a single non-fake picture or video of a massacre. 48 hours since I published this article, RT is still running a fake picture.

The factually-based argument is that RT did not do "journalism" by any professional definition because it did not verify its facts. One of its editors was made aware weeks ago, but he  took no action to edit the pieces, nor did he take action to address the concerns with his peers in this forum with anything more than a sarcastic remark. Now, in light that a fake picture remains on RT's article, his response is that it is not his job as an editor to edit this piece, nor is it his job to notify RT that the piece needs editing.

As for whether I think Ivor belongs here, I certainly did not invite him here, nor did I accept his invitation, but other moderators obviously believed he should be part of this conversation and so he should remain here, and I have found his contributions have been very enlightening.

Bryan then complained that it was a personal attack and sticking it to Ivor with no collegiality.
 
That it wasn't exactly collegial to let a fake report of fake massacre stand, and never admit it, and not correct it is lost in this flurry of fake hurt feelings.
 
But Open Newsroom is visible to the public. It's membership only to comment and post in it, but it's,  well, open to view (unless I missed something). It's not just open to the members of its group.
 
So that means the expectation that quotes have to be vetted, permissioned, refined, fixed, deleted is UTTERLY misplaced.  In fact, it only illustrates to me once again how Open Source=Closed Society in the way little rules spring up around the fake "openness" to in fact browbeat people and shut down openness so that the open thing is really run by a little controlling cadre. It's exactly the way collectivization worked — badly — in Russia — and it works no differently even if you have not potatoes to grow, but news stories.