Re: Does Debian need a press office?
On Thu, July 7, 2005 12:46, Andreas Barth wrote:
> * Kevin Mark (kmark+debian-devel@pipeline.com) [050707 12:33]:
>> With the recent article from Zdnet, does Debian need a press officer or
>> www.debian.org/press? If harm is done to the reputation to the Debian
>> organization by word or deed, should there be someone to respond to
>> this?
>
> We have a press office, and the press office is just now preparing an
> announcement about security.
This sounds very after-the-facts to me: the press had to base its report
on the statements that individuals make on mailinglists and blogs; what
was needed was an official statement early, when it came appearent that
there was a problem.
So we might have a press office, but it's not functioning like it could.
Be there early to present the facts. It's better to admit that something's
wrong and provide people with the facts about what exactly it is, than
have people guessing and gossiping away in the absence of real, official
information.
Also, I've not seen any real effort coming from this press office you
claim to exist. Look at the news page on www.debian.org. The only
announcements I've seen are along the lines of "Debian 3.0 updated" or
very occasionally "Debian present at some conferences". Debian could be
spreading such news items as "x.org now in Debian", "apt now more secure"
(with details of course on how this works and what advantages it has), or
"city of XXX switches desktops to Debian" (with some quotes as to why they
chose it).
I am hereby offering to be on the press office team, on the condition that
at least some other people will too (we need a team, not a single person).
I'm CC'ing this to 'press', I hope to discuss how we can arrange matters
to revive the press office.
regards,
Thijs
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