Re: Does Debian need a press office?

[Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.iki.fi> wrote:

> Not to belittle the fact that the project stumbled on security support,
> but the press certainly did not have to rely only on web log entries and
> postings to public mailing lists. They could have asked questions of
> people. That is, in fact, what the press was traditionally supposed to
> do: dig out the truth of the matter, not just repeat what someone else
> has said.

As has been pointed out, we're obliged to deal with the reality of the
situation (which is that the press /don't/ do the checking that they're
supposed to do) regardless of what we'd like the situation to be.

However, in this case, the main thing the press were basing their
reports on seemed to be Martin's blog - and Martin's both a member of
the security team and a press officer, so this could easily be mistaken
for an official pronouncement. In a volunteer organisation it's not
always clear whether somebody is speaking officially or not, and people
should take that into account when making public statements.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.devel@srcf.ucam.org