Notes on media veracity
The correction was appreciated and felt like a small victory for truth and fairness, but I would have been happy with the outcome even if Wired had never acquiesced. The real goal was to do what I described above: reveal the bad faith of people who are attacking you, in order to strengthen employee resolve, rally your supporters, and win the hearts and minds of moderate observers.
As I mentioned, going public is not always the right approach, but I believe it was in this case. First, the facts were on our side; we had a strong case and he had none. Second, what he did was shoddy at best and deserved to be challenged both on principle and on substance, especially before innuendo could ossify into perceived fact. Third, this was the kind of blatant overreach that showed how unreasonable and unfounded some of the criticism of Substack could be.
