[SIGCIS-Members] Why is HuffPost publishing another "invention of email" series?

Andrew Russell arussell at stevens.edu
Wed Sep 3 07:57:45 PDT 2014


At the risk of (or in hopes of) provoking Tom Haigh and others, I thought I would share the following:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140901/07280928386/huffpo-publishes-bizarre-misleading-factually-incorrect-multi-part-series-pretending-guy-invented-email-even-though-he-didnt.shtml

I’m sure many of you noticed the recent round of HuffPo stories, promoting the claims of the guy who claimed to invent email in 1978.  Similar to the “Al Gore invented the Internet” story from several years ago, this particular “invention of email” story seems to be more compelling through a media studies lens (i.e., why do media outlets keep publishing nonsense?), and not at all a case of uncertainty or debate amongst serious historians or networking engineers.

Andy


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