Re: nytimes

[Aaron Swartz <xx@aaronsw.com>]

cool. best of luck.

and if the schwartz gives up on getting the nyt piece out, i'm happy
to talk about alternate ways of going public

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 7:34 PM, Carl Malamud <xxxxxxx@media.org> wrote:
>
> On Feb 10, 2009, at 4:25 PM, Aaron Swartz wrote:
>
>>> this isn't about saving 3 days, this is about making sure we're still a
>>> real
>>> ongoing news item.  if we do nothing, that is how you get cut.
>>
>> If you think that might happen, you should talk to Schwartz about it
>> first. I'm sure he wants the article to see print too.
>
> i've been talking to him 5-10 times per day.  this isn't a rash move.
>
>>
>>
>>> PACER.  Part of my aim is to flush out the nytimes, but I also want to
>>> make
>>> sure we've got an ask on the table when the profile of this issue goes
>>> up.
>>
>> I thought our ask was the rest of PACER.
>
> exactly ... but, it is an old ask.  I want to reaffirm that.  See below ...
>
>>
>>
>>> down) if we are just sitting around.  Editors don't like to hear that the
>>> story they're reading was really cool 2 weeks ago.  :))
>>
>> This story is largely about things that happened months ago, not weeks
>> ago.
>
> hmm ... I don't feel comfortable without a plan b.  it isn't right to put
> 100% faith in one event.  you can hope for plan a, do everything possible to
> make plan a happen, but it isn't right to not do anything.
>
> more importantly, if you play to the media, you are no longer a story.
>
> but, I hear you ... I will leave your name out of any decisions I make.
>  And, I do intend to sit on my hands until at least noon tomorrow, at which
> point I'm somewhat confident there is a chance that Schwartz simply tells me
> he is running the story.  Either way, he and I will be talking ... it is our
> aim to see this hit the copydesk by noon.  He's at home nursing a kid just
> coming out of oral surgery, I've got a bunch of other stuff, but we agreed
> to touch base early in the day and then mid-day to see what the copy desk is
> doing.  And, if he tells me it isn't going tomorrow, but the editor is ready
> to call it something real, then I'm also happy to sit.
>
> One reason John takes me seriously is that I have a real agenda that is not
> press-driven.  If I am just sitting back and doing nothing, he gets
> suspicious and thinks I'm playing to the gallery.  So, I tell him honestly
> (every day) where I am and where I intend to take my agenda.  The last six
> weeks have not been about a nytimes piece, they have been a day-to-day
> battle to get the district courts to behave.  I'm confident that continuing
> to roll this out to the general public in the next day or two is the right
> thing to do, and John knows we are very, very close to that point.  For
> example, he knows my paper trail went live, he knows WIRED has been chasing
> me, he saw the scribd stuff go up.  The FBI and the jack-booted thugs are
> the lede, but the real story is the courts have changed their policies ...
> that is the point I am trying to reaffirm.
>
> Carl
>
>