” Please no more reporting on this until the ENTIRE INVESTIGATION IS COMPLETE AS YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY AS A JOURNALIST NOT TO JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS CONCERNING THESE MATTERS.”I certainly hope you intend to hold everyone to that standard. The initial investigation will take days, the full investigation will take months. So… No news (‘reporting’)about the incident for months, is that what you want?

First problem “reporting” isn’t a “Jump to conclusions”. Reporting is the act of relaying information about a specific event, not opinion. I suspect you would like for Mike not to editorialize, which is to make comments or express opinions rather than just report the news.

Tech Dirt is a blog which, in my opinion, is an appropriate venue to express opinion. If it weren’t there would be no need for comments either, since they are almost exclusively opinion. ;^)

Second, I don’t think Mike reached a ‘conclusion’ he said

“I can certainly recognize the reasons for doing this, but it *seems* like an overreaction — especially at a time when coordinating with others via mobile phone can be so important.”

(emphasis added) which is NOT a conclusion. Note the keyword “seems”, the definition of which is “Used to make a statement or description of one’s thoughts, feelings, or actions less assertive or forceful.”

“Mike, here’s some journalistic advice on the DHS….

1. I these crisis situations….NEVER DOUBT THEM….”

Right, we must never question authority, well at least when there is a crisis, they could never ‘get it wrong’. Give me a break. Look at the handling of Katrina by your beloved DHS. DHS like every other bureaucratic organization has a set of ‘Standard Operating Procedures’, which are intended to streamline the process based on PAST experience. (See 9/11, Katrina… for full details) This will never be a good way to handle a crisis (though it may be the best available way), since the crisis is generally not something that can be planned for, if it could be planned for it could be avoided.

Again, a blog is a perfect place to question DHS, current or proposed legislation or in fact any news of the day. It is the purpose of a blog to inform and in fact initiate a discussion or dialog.

“you have to keep in mind that they found and diffused two other bombs (one of which was at the JFK Library”

Gonna need a cite on that, because the news I have heard said the JFK incident was not related and they found one un-detonated bomb, not two. Nor have I heard any credible reporting that the bombs were triggered by cell phone. At a large event like the Boston Marathon, where the cellular phone system will likely be above capacity anyway it would not be wise to rely on cell phone technology for detonation of a device, especially if you are going to use it for detonation of multiple devices. After the first device detonates, the cellular network will most certainly be overwhelmed by people calling 911, trying to get a hold of friends and relatives to let them know they are ok…

In my opinion it was a lot more problematic for news agencies to inaccurately report that the JFK Library fire was a third bomb, when in fact it was an unrelated incident.

“They would have had to do a thorough job at searching for others throughout the city…which could take up to 4 hours.”

Where exactly did you get 4 hours? It would take days to search for bombs “throughout the city” and that is if you ignored residential areas. You would need to search public buildings, trash cans, vehicles, sewers…