An interesting thing about the Facebook Oversight Board is that it has managed to take all the infighting about access, embargoes, and corporate stenography that has divided tech journalists for years and bring it to academia.

I guess if I could share one small thing I've learned with my academic friends it would be that ultimately we need both access and outsider criticism. When done right, with full disclosure and self-awareness, they're complementary. Don't let the company divide and conquer you.

The bad kind of access is the kind that is unacknowledged, that comes out via opaquely sourced takes that advance a pro-company spin, that seeks to discredit outside critics on the basis of insider info, or that presents the company's version of the story as the definitive one.

The useful kind of access journalism—or at least the kind that's necessary in the absence of real transparency—uncovers facts and details that challenge the company line; recognizes its own limitations; and understands that it is fundamentally in service of informed criticism.

To get specific, I think the work that @klonick has done on the FB Oversight Board has been careful and necessary, and I think it also needs to be understood in the context on the access she was granted, and critiqued by outsiders—and none of that should be remotely ad hominem.

I think these responses from @zeynep & @davidakaye are both right. Reportage conditioned on access can never be "definitive" in itself. But it can be a "must read" for outside critics who can and should question its framing and purpose and propose different interpretations.

Speaking for myself, the vast majority of my tech journalism does not rely on access, but I will accept and sometimes even pursue access when it is on terms that are conducive to, rather than hostile to, the project of informed criticism.

When I do accept access for a story, I try to maintain and even heighten my critical faculties, but also to rein in my impulse to offer sweeping conclusions—a task best left to others who can assess my reporting independently, with zero encumbrance of obligation to my sources.

I'll get off my high horse now before I get tossed from it by some example of shitty journalism I've done in the past—whether it's an access piece that was overly credulous or a time when I bitterly trashed another journalist for accepting access, because I'm sure I've done both.

OK one more thing: This is very good on both the value and real problems with embargoes, and especially the new problems raised by "access scholarship" vis-a-vis the old ones of "access journalism." https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/02/journalists-are-grappling-with-their-relationships-to-big-tech-companies-its-time-for-academics-to-do-the-same/

Since I already lost everyone like 6 tweets ago I might as well throw this on the pile just for posterity.... I agree with @emilybell that this is the best take so far on the Oversight Board's upcoming Trump decision (and on the entire project, really). https://twitter.com/emilybell/status/1360078195463249920