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Comment by applfanboysbgon

17 hours ago

"I will kill you if you do not do X" is still a threat to kill you. All the more so when X is a thing the person will obviously not do. Rewriting the story would destroy whatever credibility they have as a journalist, and probably is literally not even possible assuming they work for any kind of reasonable organization (hey boss, I need you to update that story I wrote so a different set of gamblers win). Also, even if they did update it, they'd probably start receiving death threats from the gamblers on the other side of the bet they just screwed over.

Honestly kind of crazy that you call such an ultimatum a "rewrite option", as if that diminishes the fact that it's a death threat in any way whatsoever.

9 comments

applfanboysbgon

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caminante  17 hours ago

>Honestly kind of crazy that you call such an ultimatum a "rewrite option"

It's crazy for me to use the first person's own words? That's crazy?

Journalists get threats all the time. You just made my point on why it's more nuanced that this author engaged and was offered a chance to re-write.

  • dlenski  8 hours ago

    > You just made my point on why it's more nuanced that this author engaged…

    As the article clearly explains, the author replied ("engaged") without knowing why his interlocutors were interested in the minor details of the story.

    His initial interlocutor ("Aviv") seemed to be engaging in good faith: "Alternatively, if you have information that it was indeed a full missile that was not intercepted, I would be glad to be corrected."

    The author was naturally interested in getting the story right, and wanted to understand what his interlocutors might know about it, how they might be misunderstanding it, or why it might be so important to them.

    > … and was offered a chance to re-write.

    Do you truly believe that an "offer" to rewrite a story in a way that the author believes to be inaccurate—accompanied by death threats—is an important "nuance" that must be conveyed in the headline of a posting about this?

    That's wild.

  • applfanboysbgon  17 hours ago

    "Offered a chance to re-write." How is it even possibly to downplay something to this degree? I suppose "I'm going to kill you if you don't wire me everything in your bank account" is not a death threat, because hey, they're offering you a chance to give them all of your money. When someone on the street holds you at knifepoint, they're just offering you a chance to give them your wallet and phone!