Recently, for reasons that I still haven’t quite figured out, I was asked to comment on recent layoffs at a certain online publisher that was rumored to be “doing arbitrage”. The reason I can’t figure out why I was asked about this is that I don’t know very much about this company.
However, I did write an article about arbitrage last August, which is perhaps why I came to mind.
When I was asked about the story the first time, I didn’t realize it was for an article. I commented on arbitrage as a general tactic, saying that search engines have been less than lukewarm to the idea. When the article was published however, it looked like I was commenting on the company.
Well, at this point I think, “OK, this is a lesson learned - try not to comment on something like this if it’s already in the news”.
Which is why when a newspaper reporter called, looking for a comment, I made it very, very clear that I did not know anything about the company in question. Multiple times; in the hearing of my collegues. In fact, the reporter actually pointed out a few examples of sites that he claimed were arbitrage, and I made mention of the fact that the sites looked quite nice and had a good amount of content, and didn’t look like arbitrage at all.
So imagine my surprise when I see my name in a newspaper article specifically talking about the company. I feel that the article gives the impression that I have something against the company, which is utterly incorrect, as I don’t know anything about them. There are words there attributed to me that seem to be completely out of context.
My mistake, probably, was in answering the question of “what is arbitrage” after repeatedly stating I knew nothing about the company. I felt the context was clear - I don’t know anything about that company, but I will help you understand what arbitrage is. I truly did not expect to see my name written in the same sentence speaking about the company I had made it clear I knew nothing about. I guess all that we can do now is speak to the editor and see what happens.
So, today’s lesson, learned the hard way, is to just say “no comment”.
sigh.
Dave @ Seo Blog
January 21, 2008
@ 5:28 pm
Indeed, it’s always dangerous to answers somebody’s questions if you actually don’t know that person. You never know what they do with your answers. The media is just too dangerous…had the same problem like you and the other company really couldn’t laugh with my comments, at this moment (and it has been over a year) they are still trying to catch me..The best thing you can do is indeed…no comments
Dave
edwinsdesignlab
February 27, 2008
@ 5:43 am
It wouldn’t be the first time that an employee got fired for talking to the media about internal affairs. There is always the interpretation of your comments by the press, so you can not be carefull enough.