Why I Won’t Believe the Globe & Mail Anymore

In the 1990s, when I was active in the domain name system reform movement on the Internet (sometimes politely referred to as "the DNS wars"), I was getting calls from reporters every week or so. One thing surprised me at first: they would ask if it was alright if they sent me their article so I could fact-check it, to ensure they hadn’t misinterpreted me or written something out of context or the like.

Now, I’d always respected the Globe and Mail. "Canada’s national newspaper." It seemed like a "serious" newspaper, and to be honest, I wouldn’t wrap fish in the Star, Sun, or The Irrational—err, "National"—Post.

So I was honored when a Globe reporter called, but I felt a little disappointed when they said they hadn’t been following the issue and had a much less than enthusiastic tone; the reporter really didn’t seem interested. They asked one or two questions, I gave my opinion, and that was that. It was a much shorter interview than I was used to, and there was just no depth there.

Surprised he hadn’t mentioned this, I asked if he’d like me to review his article prior to publication for accuracy. DNS is an arcane, subtle, complex, and not well-understood ecosystem to this day—and especially so in 1997. The reporter was offended when I asked if he’d like me to review what he was going to write and gave me this unctuous line, exactly as he said it: "We’re the Globe & Mail, we don’t do that."

They had apparently also interviewed Kent Crispin, one of the people diametrically opposed to my views in this debate. I argued the free-market position; Kent advocated the central choke point that is now ICANN.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when the Globe article came out and they’d attributed my opinions to Kent, and Kent’s to me.

From that point on, I haven’t believed anything I’ve ever read in the Globe & Mail again. Moreover, I’ve noticed that if I don’t know much about a subject, the Globe seems to have an informative, in-depth article about that topic. But in every case, when they write about something I actually know about, the article is at best superficial or, at worst (and usually), just plain wrong.