According to Billet themselves, they heard nothing about compensation or payback until about 3 hours after the original GN video went live… Which Billet hadnt even replied to before Linus made his post saying they’ve already made the deal on compensation.
Yeah…
Before I was generally on the side of “ask for comment even if you don’t have to”
LMG/Linus have shown exactly why it is sometimes better to be “unprofessional” considering that they apparently sent a quick email to Billet saying they would pay them right before hitting submit on the forum post so that it sounds like GN were negligent. I think I would have still preferred for that to have happened (GN can just as easily include the timeline in the original video) and Billet would have more time to explain what the actual cost is (since it sounds less like an agreed upon payment and more “oh, here is the cost of the part. Fuck you for damages”), but those bullshit “We are making a change” non-actions are what tend to result.
its not unprofessional to give the subject of a story that is doing active harm a heads up so they can use their position to pressure you into silence, or try to come up with some last minute hooplah to try to discredit the reporting rather than addressing the core issues in their own company.
Thats like telling a company that is actively dumping toxic waste into a river that you know they are doing it, and you would like comment before they report on scene next week. All you do is give them time to stop the dumping, clean up the obvious signs, and put out an undercutting statement to try and discredit/dismiss the legitimacy of the story.
See, that is somewhere that I very much disagree with GN on
Using your toxic waste excuse: if it gets the company to stop dumping toxic waste a week sooner then… that is a week less of making three eyed fish and killing kids.
That said: I do agree that timing and pressure are a problem. GN likely already know what the fallout of this will be and went in eyes open. So LMG pressuring them is not the issue. And even in terms of leadup: It is “kind of shitty”, but timing an email to be sent after WAN show on Friday and then posting Tuesday would leave minimal room for the obvious hit pieces.
Like I said, I don’t think GN had to. But in terms of outcome: most people aren’t going to watch the follow up so it will just be LMG’s gaslighting response that makes GN look unprofessional.
That has got to be the most corrupted take that could be possible taken from that.
You know what serves the public good? Reporting on it, So people can see what the company is doing, So they don’t get away with turning off the valve for a couple days… So they get held accountable for having the valve at all, and the exposure forcing them to spend their money on cleanup and decontamination, while the public outcry gets so bad that government steps in with regulation, and legislation, and oversight.
You know what doesnt serve the public good? Letting the corpo hide its shit and get away with everything, because you think theres some insignificant, nonexistent benefit to letting it do so.
By not letting Linus use his position to try and pressure Steve, by not giving Linus time to get a coverup in place, Linus got outed for lying about the Billet compensation, Further showing the lengths he’ll go to, to lie, double down, and shift blame to anything but himself.
You still report. You don’t stop reporting.
But what is the difference here? GN made a video. LMG made a gaslighting response. Maybe a fraction of the people who cared are going to watch the GN HW News update and see that get refuted.
Versus: GN made a video. A day before it launched, LMG tried to do some bullshit. GN calls out that bullshit with receipts. The audience of the original video see everything
At the end of the day: Meaningful change is unlikely. I don’t expect LMG to change much (outside of doing scrapwars again or whatever to recover lost subscribers). But I think “You might stop doing shitty stuff a day earlier” is not a good reason to not solicit comment.
Again, I don’t think a comment is required considering the original video (and this one) are literally responding TO comments. But if the Billet section was “Shortly after reaching out for comment, Billet informed us that LMG had finally returned their calls and offered to pay them back. We will keep an eye on the outcome of this” then… it doesn’t change much. Other than removing one aspect of the gaslighting response LMG sent.
And same with the toxic waste example. If the outcome is Julia Roberts talking into a camera about how Mr Burns stopped dumping toxic waste shortly after being approached for comment but that watch groups will be keeping an eye on this: The end result is likely the same. The waste starts back up a few weeks later. But that is one less week of toxic waste being dumped.
And then they resume the dumping next week, maybe at a different location and long term nothing changes.
Exactly.
Not every story requires input/comment from the subject.
Its not unprofessional or hitjobbing to not get one.
Especially when the subject has a public forum (WAN, Twitter, His own Website, Youtube, etc) where he has explicitly made his statements and stances known.
Then you go after them, again. And again. And again.
Surprised Linus didn’t make them sign an NDA with how shady he played that.
So fucking sad to see. I want nothing more than Linus and LTT to continue to be massively successful but FFS he needs to pull his head out of his ass and accept a bit a constructive criticism now and then. Even LTT’s own staff agreed on a number of Steve’s points but Linus keeps putting his ego ahead of everything else.