Where has my journalistic integrity gone?

I don't usually do posts providing commentary about the latest brouhaha that my brother's going through, but the latest missquotes by a certain Register writer are too much.

Sure, my brother might have been drinking too much Kool-Aid of late, but I've never known him to shy away from the truth on his blog. He likes most of the things that Microsoft is doing (has for years actually) and blogs about it, but he also blogs about the things he likes that other companies are doing.

He does balance this optimism with the occasional post about something that isn't right, but in general, his style has always been one of "wow, the industry is doing some amazing stuff and here's another example" variety versus my "oy, yet another company that doesn't get it" schtick. That's his personality and one good reason why I think he got his dream job at Microsoft. The fact that he's no slouch at writing or working behind a camera doesn't hurt either.

He's the kind of person that does get others interested in new things. I wouldn't be blogging here today if it wasn't for the fact that he introduced me to this new world, this great unknown called blogging. Come to think of it, I found bloglines through him, RSS through him, ICQ through him, heck, I even found out about the web through him. I'm sure that there's more than 10 people out there who are using Activewords right now because of Robert.

I'd be interested to see how many developers that were on the fence about Longhorn (sorry, I'm never calling it by the lame name) chose to write apps for it based on Robert's job performance as Evangelist.

At any rate, the guy at the Register that said that Robert emailed things that he never did made a big mistake by taking on someone in the industry with a reputation for straight shooting, albeit under the influence of aforementioned koolaid. I know that there are people out there who detest Microsoft to the core of their bones, but to try this sort of shenanigan? Just because Microsoft stepped on a lot of toes in it's past doesn't give anyone the right to step outside the bounds of decency in order to bring them down. And it certainly doesn't give someone the right to immorally use another person's hard won credibility in the service of their own goals.

You can't hold Microsoft to a higher standard if you aren't also going to act towards that standard. You can't have a free press without journalistic integrity as it's backbone. Freedom of speech does not mean that you can put words in someone's mouth that they never spoke.

When "journalists" end up crossing the line into fabrication, while bloggers like Robert continue to carry the banner of ethical speech, perhaps the days of traditional journalism ARE over. Which is a shame, because the way our world and our country are going, we could really use some real journalism.