What happens when a top tech figure has an online soap box, a Silicon Valley-size ego, millions in the bank and a grudge against the mainstream media?
In A-list blogger and former blog mogul Jason Calacanis's case, he turns into a upside-down reactionary-populist version of President George W. Bush or the Department of Homeland Security, demanding questions be emailed to him or he won't answer them.
Calacanis and Wired News business editor Dylan Tweney Tweeney are blog fighting, of sorts, over a request from a Wired reporter to do a phone interview with Calacanis (Suggestion: read the posts, not just the headlines, if you want to have more fun). Calacanis refused, saying he would only do an email interview, which the reporter declined, and then blasted Wired for not knowing about email on his blog. Dylan, who isn't the reporter in question, shot back, defending Wired's tech cred and even lifting the veil on our almost-in-beta RSS-telegraph mashup.
Calacanis complains:
As a journalist, I know exactly why the as-yet-named Wired reporter refused to do an email interview. Email interviews come off canned, having been pored over by five levels of the public relations department; sources massage their answers to tough questions when they aren't dodging them; and there's no opportunity for quick follow-ups or being able to bond/nail the interviewee. Unless it's a trusted source or its absolutely the only way I'll get an answer, I will not do email-only interviews.
RSS guru Dave Winer, who was asked by the same reporter for an interview, has a more interesting suggestion:
Here's what I said: "Not generally doing interviews these days. If you have a few questions, send them along, and if I have something to say, I'll write a blog post, which of course you're free to quote. Sorry that's about the best I can do."
Like Jason, I have a lot of experience being misquoted, or having comments linked with others, as if there was some back and forth that didn't happen. Or I get used to make a point that the reporter wants to make, and my story gets lost. Often, the reporter's point is that I'm a putz. Why should I work hard to help people do that? Also like Jason, I don't have any trouble getting my ideas out on my own.
So if you want to work together, let's find a new way to do it. I'm fed up with the old system. The way we start the reboot is to do all our work out in the open, real-time. Not via email, but in full view of everyone.
Oddly, I've interviewed both Winer and Calacanis on the phone in the past, and neither complained about the results.
UPDATE: Fred Vogelstein, the reporter who asked for the interview, posts the full exhange – inluding an eventual agreement to tape and post a phone interview – here.
