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February 2001
Brill's Content responds to Salon's letter
Lara Kate Cohen, author of The Truth According to Ruth, responds to a letter from Gary Kamiya, executive editor of Salon.
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Mr. Kamiya's central argument appears to be that the piece was one-sided. As our story noted, Shalit declined to be interviewed, so the complaints against Shalit by David Redhill, Rick Bragdon, and Amy Becker could not be directly rebutted by her. Therefore, we quoted Mr. Kamiya extensively and made clear that he stood firmly behind Shalit.
In his letter, Mr. Kamiya goes into considerable detail to support his claim that our article was filled with "crucial omissions, half-truths, and misleading statements." The following is a point-by-point response:
- Mr. Kamiya claims that the piece failed to mention the potential "motives or agenda" of the sources who criticized Shalit. But the story made it clear that Shalit's article was an unflattering portrait of the industry. Obviously the industry insiders who were the focus of the story might be upset about how their business was portrayed.
- Mr. Kamiya contends that the story did not "assess the credibility of the accusations" and that the piece didn't offer a counterargument to Shalit's critics. This is simply not true. Again, Shalit would not comment. And neither Kamiya nor Shalit could produce any notes to support the disputed quotes in Salon's story. As the story noted, the only counterargument that Salon offered was Kamiya saying, "Everyone who's ever been interviewed has a different take on how accurately the reporter characterized them."
- Mr. Kamiya asserts that the article misleadingly implies that critics of Shalit's story pursued their accusations separately. In fact, our story noted that Landor employees met to discuss the story and consult with a lawyer.
- Mr. Kamiya says that some of the sources in Shalit's story tried to "drum up industry support for a campaign" against her. But if sources believe they've been quoted inaccurately, what's wrong with their calling other sources in the story to see if they feel the same way? Also, Mr. Kamiya should know that the aggrieved sources didn't contact Brill's Content. We called them after reading Salon's lengthy, seven-part correction of Shalit's piece.
- Yes, as Mr. Kamiya's letter states, Bragdon was aware of Shalit's past journalistic indiscretions. So what? Shalit's bouts with plagiarism had been widely reported. How does this fact undermine Bragdon's credibility?
- Mr. Kamiya says that the "most serious" errors in Shalit's piece "were that she misspelled Bragdon's name and [that she] incorrectly asserted that Landor created the name 'Livent.'" But Shalit made more fundamental mistakes. For example, she misidentified Redhill as the "global executive director of Landor" who led "his team" of 40 executives through the branding process. He was, in fact, the company spokesperson.
- Mr. Kamiya is incorrect to assert that neither Redhill nor Bragdon claimed outright fabrication in their letters. In his letter, Bragdon wrote that he never told Shalit that "we don't like it if clients fall in love with our names." And Redhill claimed that he "did not describe [his] work as creating 'random visual associations attached to sequential words.' I do not even know what this means."
- Mr. Kamiya is correct to accept responsibility for misplacing Redhill's letter and therefore delaying Salon's response to Redhill's complaints. But in doing so he downplays Redhill's many attempts to bring the article's errors to the attention of Salon. Redhill wrote a letter to Salon on behalf of the Landor employees who thought they had been inaccurately depicted. He re-sent this letter. He called and wrote a personal note to Salon editor in chief David Talbot. Salon didn't respond for seven months, and did so only after they received a letter from Landor's lawyer.
- Mr. Kamiya contends that our article should have detailed Shalit's response to Bragdon's letter. However, we summarized Bragdon's charges and therefore summarized Shalit's response, including the quote, "I stand by my piece as reported." Readers interested in following Mr. Kamiya's suggestion to evaluate the credibility of Bragdon's letter, should visit Salon, where the full text appears.
- Mr. Kamiya contends that our article misrepresented what happened to Shalit's notes. Specifically, he says that he saw Shalit's notes about Rick Bragdon. But the story never implied that Mr. Kamiya hadn't seen any of Shalit's notes. While discussing charges unrelated to Rick Bragdon's, it simply noted that "seven months had gone by and Shalit had lost her notes." Our fact-checker confirmed this information with Mr. Kamiya.
- In his response to David Redhill's charges against Shalit, Mr. Kamiya misunderstands the facts: "Cohen simply accepts without question Redhill's claim that he did not talk to Shalit about the Agilent naming process...." I never "simply accepted" that Redhill declined to speak to Shalit about Agilent. In fact, I never even reported it. Our story simply reported that Redhill says he wasn't involved in the naming process, not that he didn't talk about it. There's really nothing to disagree about here: In its correction of Shalit's story, Salon acknowledged Redhill's lack of involvement.
- Mr. Kamiya contends that Amy Becker's complaints -- that Shalit fabricated quotes -- lose validity because "they were made seven months after the piece ran." (Emphasis in the original.) But Becker didn't wait seven months to respond. Immediately after Shalit's piece ran, Becker, Redhill, and other Landor employees met to discuss mistakes in the story. Redhill, as the company spokesperson, wrote a letter to Salon on behalf of all the company's employees quoted in the story, including Becker.
- According to Mr. Kamiya's letter, Salon only made two changes to Shalit's story without notifying readers. That's incorrect. In fact, Salon made other significant changes, including removing a sentence saying that the Agilent project cost $1 million and changing a quote about "mood boards" that was attributed to David Redhill.
- Mr. Kamiya is correct on one point. He says that Redhill never complained to Salon about one quote that he told Brill's Content was false. Our story implied that on this particular quote, Salon knew about the complaint but didn't do anything about it. In fact, Redhill says he can't recall whether or not he had complained to Salon about the quote. Still, the fact remains that Redhill says Shalit put words in his mouth: She wrote that clients are too wrapped up in the company to be involved in the naming process. "'I mean, would you name your own children,'" Shalit quotes Redhill as asking. As our story noted, Redhill's wife was pregnant at the time.
Read The Truth According to Ruth.
Read Salon's letter to the editor.
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