Thread by @TamarHaspel

Last week @HuffPost published a hit piece about me. I have a lot to say about it. My response is over on @medium, and addresses everything in mind-numbing detail, but I’ll give you the gist right here.
link.medium.com/rjkqbRLS5Y

It’s by Paul Thacker, who has a long history of smearing journalists who aren’t sufficiently anti-GMO. I won’t name names because when I do they become targets all over again. And that - THAT - is the problem. Attacks like this kill journalism. I blame @HuffPost.

Agenda-driven trolls are a fact of modern life. Thacker’s gonna thack. But when @HuffPost gives these pieces a platform, and a veneer of respectability, that’s when the damage is done. HuffPost editors @hilella, @kate_sheppard, and @recordedvoice are OK with it.

Ironically, the piece is about ethics, and I have plenty to say about mine. But how about the ethics of accusing me of conflicts of interest without even mentioning that I have a COI policy vetted by top media ethicists, whose advice I always follow? tamarhaspel.com/?page_id=10

How about the ethics of failing to note that all work I did with people or groups with undisclosed industry funding happened BEFORE the funding was disclosed? That’s the problem with not disclosing funding.

And the ethics of painting me as one-sided by simply ignoring all the times I’m critical of industry? Oh, and the ethics of hiring someone with a long history of nasty subtweets about me (and other journos he disagrees with) to write a “disinterested” article about my work?

Executive Editor Hillary Frey (@hilella) knows about all this (I told her), and she’s like, nah, we’re good with it.

Let’s talk about conflicts! I’ve been asking to talk about ethics for freelancers for ages. Discourse benefits when journos can be in the public sphere, but how do freelancers, with no paycheck or expense account, do that without compromising objectivity?nationalpress.org/topic/ethics-g…

I called media ethicists to answer that question. Some answers are obvious: no industry junkets or events. But an academic conference partially funded by, say, USDA, an NGO, and an industry group? I take it case by case, and disclose, disclose, disclose. tamarhaspel.com/?page_id=32

I’ve disclosed every event Thacker mentions (that’s mostly how he knows about them). I do everything out in the open to *invite* disagreement and discussion. That’s how all of us get better at navigating these waters. But nobody cares until somebody says MONSANTO.

For more detail, read the piece on @medium. Read the links and the links in those links. If you’ve got questions about why so much was left out of the @HuffPost piece, and why gross mischaracterizations were allowed to stand, please ask @hilella. I’d love to hear her answers.

When @lpolgreen left the @NYTimes to take over at @HuffPost, lots of us hoped she’d bring those standards with her. I, of course, have one very big reason to be disappointed, but I think we all should be. link.medium.com/rjkqbRLS5Y