Comments on: Journalist becomes the story at Mark Zuckerberg SXSWi keynote

In one of the ugliest scenes at a conference I've seen, a capacity audience turned on Zuckerberg's interviewer and it only went downhill from there.

[bgcoke]

Trainwreck from the beginning

This article captured it, but the people in the overflow rooms were
talking out loud about the flirting, interrupting and poor questions

[rafacst]

Great coverage!

I'm reading all posts about this story and, so far, this is the better one.

Just a small correction: "sly" on "With a sly look...".

[kystormz]

Sad

I have been doing Interviews with the cast of Jericho on my blog and I can tell you how hard it is, she sounds like a really good interviewer who maybe did not start right, but for a crowd of the biggest and brightest in the tech world, how disappointing.
I hope she has a better night and tomorrow, and that people remember we are all freaking human.

[4schler]

who gave her a tv show?

and is it legit? i've never even heard her name before. if she can't even keep a keynote together, how in hell did she land a tv job?

[lgreig]

who gave her this keynote?

seriously, zuckerberg was on every sxsw press release i got. the
keynote was meant to be the belle of the ball. why give the
interview to someone whose sole tactic is "being the hot one" in the
industry?

[nickelsheep]

I sat next to her assistant in the back

Not only was the interviewer annoying, but so was her assistant in the back room. Her assistant banged loudly on her keys the entire interview making it very difficult for everyone near her to hear. In addition, every time the crowd would respond against the interviewer, this "typist" would glare at individuals in the room.


This story is well written and and very accurate.

[Anjuan]

Sarah was Michelle Madigan'ed

Sarah was given the same treatment that Michelle Madigan was given when she tried to sneak into DEFCON. Both women broke the cardinal rule of covering geek news as a woman: understand the geek mind and respect it. Instead of presenting the interview that apparently was well researched and insightful, Sarah opted to play the "let me pretend to be your girlfriend" trick. She killed the substance of her questions by picking the wrong approach to posing them. I don't know if she thought that this would put Zuckerberg at ease, but it completely back fired.

This points to love/hate relationship that geeks have with the women who try to invade their territory. Treat them with respect and genuinely act as one of them, and you get treated like Veronica Belmont or Cali Lewis. Fail to do this, and you get treated like Sarah Lacy.

[drumdance]

Gender BS

This is BS. The VERY NEXT SESSION in the SAME ROOM was by Kathy Sierra i.e a woman. Her presentation was brilliant, which is why her sessions are packed every year. No backlash against her. Do you think it might have something to do with the quality of the content?

Sarah Lacy might be a good writer (I haven't read her stuff for BusinessWeek) but she clearly is not a good live interviewer. I thought the same thing about Kottke a couple years ago when he interviewed Dooce.

[lucy1985]

too cozy

Trouble is, Sarah can't shut up for two friggin seconds to let someone actually reply to a question during an interview. I think she also can't decide whether she wants to cover a story or BE the story. She's far too close to the subjects she reports on. If she wants to flirt and be their friends perhaps she should cover another industry.

[willardk]

geek/animals need to be trained to be human

Not the other way around... geeks are a part of the bigger picture... where people actually have real sex and actually do real flirting... and if they didn't like the interview a simple walk out would have sufficed. Instead they chose to behave like animals..... maybe geeks belong in a zoo, caged up so we can look at them from a distance as they yell over each other.

[M C]

Digg generation in action - SXSW, get back to the music!

As bad as she might have been, the audience acted like a pack of 16-year-olds.

I look forward to SXSW ditching their useless, self-congratulatory exercise in collecting high-tech dollars and stick to what works.

[shrippyshram]

+1

+1

16-year-old nerds who skipped their afternoon juicebox.

[richardault]

kickedoffthenet.com

http://kickedoffthenet.com

[Stacey Higginbotham]

Your dancing audience members ...

... were all Facebook employees. I was sitting behind them and saw their badges. At the end of the speech they were wildly impressed at how well it went.

[caroline.mccarthy]

Not the bloggers sitting next to me

I was up in the front row next to two female bloggers who got up and danced before the Facebook guys started. Either way, when the pack of Facebook employees started dancing, other people did too.

[acnetuser]

Dancing Audiance Correction

Actually, none of them work for Facebook. I knew each and every one of them. They are locals from Austin who are working on a killlller startup idea.

[Daniel Terdiman]

Not all, I think...

I think the people sitting in front of me, who were also dancing, were not Facebook employees. But I'm not 100 percent sure about that.

[Wingdude]

All about Lacy

An accurate well written article.
This was the worst interview I have ever seen - All about me Lacy.

[omer_ch]

zuckerberk rocks

its totally if mark keeps a journal about facebook progress and if he still has it intact , i think he should publish , it can get a lot appreciation for what facebook has become over the past one year

[omer_ch]

mistake

totally cooooool *

[billgottschall]

Anathema

This quote seems to need some more elucidation. "It is sort of anathema to write a story that is critical of another journalist." I know this is the common position but who watches the watchers if this is the attitude.

-B

[daftkey]

Free press!

Journalists don't need to be watched - that's what free press is all about. You wouldn't want to see one journalist censor another journalist, would you? I mean, that would be damn near unamerican!

[ClarifyAmbiguity]

She did the impossible!

Wow, a reporter who could do the impossible - make Mark Zuckerberg look good.

[hammc]

Seriously "God of Facebook"

Janetti Chon's comment comparing Zuckerberg to god in her statement, "I mean, this is the god of Facebook." is really caring that term a little too far. Zuckerberg only got to this point levergage stolen code from his work with ConnectU.

[johnsin]

The Fine Line

There is a fine line in the world of IT. I a line that is drawn between the people that actually do things, and the people who pretend to do things but really just go to these dumb conventions all day and talk about all the things they plan on doing but never actually do it.

I mean, am I the only one that is embarrassed about how all these fools in the audience who represent the modern day new media generation acted. Like a bunch of pimple faced 16 year old boys mad at the girl dungeon master.. I thought I was at Gencon for a second.

The minute people start crying and cheering over half a**ed, over evaluated software that is basically the most annoying thing put on this earth and is just the modern iteration of spam.

I want to cry.. You aren't me, and I will never be you.

[drumdance]

Nobody's fault but hers

She crashed and burned in front of a thousand people. Even rock stars get booed sometimes.

[WJeansonne]

This is total geek news. Who cares?

Facebook is a flash in the pan, just like Friendster. What a joke.

[yepperdepper]

I'm just asking!

All too often I hear interviewers ask a question and then move on to next question before that one is addressed adequately if at all.

Sometimes the interviewee will answer some of the questions before they are asked but that doesn't stop a lot of lame ass journalist from going ahead and asking anyway.

It's like they have to ask the questions that are on the paper or tela prompter regardless of what has already come up. (I have no mind, must ask question.)

Annoying to say the least
Makes me wonder how they got the job!!!