CNET Finally Reports On Its Own Fight With CBS Over Dish CES Award

from the a-bit-slow-out-the-gate dept

After the vote, we communicated the winners, as we always do, through normal channels. CNET immediately got down to the business of preparing for a massive stage show the following morning and preparing a press release.



Later that evening, we were alerted to the legal conflict for CBS. All night and through to morning, my managers up and down CNET and I fought for two things: To honor the original vote and -- when it became clear that CBS Corporate did not accept that answer -- to issue a transparent statement regarding the original vote.



Ultimately, we were told that we must use the official statement and that we must follow corporate policy to defer all press requests to corporate communications.

We were in an impossible situation as journalists. The conflict of interest was real -- a legal case can impact the bottom line of our company and introduce the possibility of bias -- but the circumstances demanded more transparency and not hurried policy.



I could have quit right then. Maybe I should have. I decided that the best thing for my team was to get through the day as best we could and to fight the fight from the other side. Every single member of the CNET Reviews team is a dedicated, ethical, passionate technology critic. If I abandoned them now, I would be abandoning the ship.

If I had to face this dilemma again, I would not quit. I stand by my team and the years of work they have put into making CNET what it is. But I wish I could have overridden the decision not to reveal that Dish had won the vote in the trailer. For that I apologize to my staff and to CNET readers.



The one thing I want to clearly communicate to my team and to everyone at CNET and beyond is this: CNET does excellent work. Its family of writers is unbiased, focused, bright, and true. CNET will continue to do excellent good work. Of that I am certain. Going forward, I will do everything within my power to prevent this situation from happening again.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Realizing that the longer it did nothing, the worse it looked, CNET itself has finally reported on the events that transpired last week when corporate boss CBS stepped into the middle of their editorial process and sought to deny CNET the ability to choose the product they thought was the best of CES, the Dish DVR with Hopper and Sling.Of course, this is only coming out well after tons of other sources had reported on this -- and upstart competitor the Verge had already broken the story about how CBS didn't just tell CNET not to vote on the Dish device, but made them rescind the award that had already been chosen.The CNET post, by reviews Editor in Chief Lindsey Turrentine, suggests that most of the staff had no idea that CBS was in litigation with Dish and they were just doing what they were supposed to do. She also pushes back against the idea that she should resign:The thing is, if she had quit, I would bet that many on her team would not have seen it as being abandoned, but actually asof someone supporting their editorial independence.She then goes on to insist that she'll fight to make sure this doesn't happen again -- but that seems difficult to believe since earlier in the existing story it suggests that she and others gave up the fight when CBS told them what they had to do:Of course, the decision to quit is one that every individual has to make themselves. But completely taking it out of the realm of possibility gives CBS the easy power to do this again and again and again. She's signalling to CBS that it can continue to walk over CNET's editorial independence, and while the editor-in-chief may protest loudly, in the end, she won't leave. That's only going to add to the cloud over CNET's reviews going forward.

Filed Under: conflicts, editorial independence, journalism

Companies: cbs, cnet, dish