NYT's Anonymous 'Person On A Blog' Revealed To Be Random Anonymous Blog Commenter

Last week, we wrote about an article in the New York Times by Kate Zernike that included as a source a person identified as "one person on a blog." This raised several questions, the first being, "Huh, what? Is that actually a sound thing to do, journalistically speaking?" The answer to that question was, of course, "No." This point was deftly underscored by the first-on-the-scene Eclectablog, who summed it up thusly: "The New York Times blew it on this one."

But it left something unanswered: where did Zernike find this random person on a blog in the first place? Happily, thanks to Kevin Hoffman, the editor-in-chief of City Pages, that mystery has been solved: it's from an anonymous commenter on their site.

On Tuesday, February 15, we published a post about the brewing debate over breastfeeding between Michele Bachmann and First Lady Michelle Obama. The post attracted no small amount of interest, including Star Tribune columnist James Lileks, who took issue with our picture of Bachmann breastfeeding in an article published yesterday in the New York Post.

Among the comments on the blog post itself was the one that the New York Times quoted. You'll notice that the Gray Lady took the liberty of cleaning up the mispelling of Bachmann's first name (how many times do we have to tell you guys, it's "Michele" not "Michelle") as well as the butchering of "mackerel" (maybe we need to invest in spell-check for comments?).

This is why I was unable to find it! I had generously assumed that the quote had accurate spellings of "Michele" and "Bachmann" and "mackerel," and so I Googled accordingly. Here's the original comment as it ran on City Pages:

Now, here's where things get interesting! This particular anonymous commenter adds nothing else to the discussion on City Pages. Whoever it was left the comment and moved on. But Zernike doesn't:

"Holy mackerel, I might have to agree with Michele Bachmann on this one!" noted one person on a blog.

A new mother who called herself a progressive Brooklynite -- and would not be identified for fear of scorn from her Democratic friends and other mothers -- said that while she hated "just about everything to do with Bachmann's politics, she is not completely wrong here."

"I support what the first lady is trying to do, but I also think there's already enough pressure on working moms," she said. "Yes, breast is best, but there are plenty of mothers who love and care for their children, but simply can't pump -- for time, work or physical reasons."

When I originally read those three paragraphs, I read them as if the same source was responsible for the commentary throughout: that the "person on a blog" began with the "holy mackerel" comment and then expanded upon it. The picture in my mind of "Holy Mackerel" person was that she was the "progressive Brooklynite" who did not want to be "identified for fear of scorn from her Democratic friends."

Now, if you're defending this piece, you probably say, "Well, Jason, we're not responsible for you misreading the article!" To which I would reply, "Then why include a random, unsourceable anonymous comment (that you had to clean up because of misspellings) in the piece at all, as it is rendered completely superfluous by this second anonymous person?"

Anonymous blog commenters: I'm sure they are nice people, but please do not use them as sources, especially in this misleading fashion.

RELATED:
New York Times quotes anonymous City Pages blog commenter on Michele Bachmann [City Pages]
New York Times finds a Democrat "on a blog" that agrees with Michele Bachmann [Eclectablog]

PREVIOUSLY, on the HUFFINGTON POST:
Random Anonymous People With Unidentified Blogs Are Apparently Allowed To Be Sources For The New York Times

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Comments

[ColinStevens]

08:05 AM on 02/22/2011

GOOD JOB, JASON.

I see FAR too many articles doing that.

Now if you would just apply this diligence to your OWN publication, HP, as well as Politico (well, you do get Politico often...), Faux News, etc., then great.

[dsws]

07:42 AM on 02/22/2011

The question is whether Ms. Zernike verified that this sampling of "random" blog comments is representative of a broader opinion. If much-less-polarized discussion has broken out across a large swathe of the politically-attentive public, that's newsworthy. Since the story is supposed to be about public reaction, random blog commenters are the right kind of examples to illustrate it with. There's no suggestion that the individual comments are significant in themselves: they're just given as examples.

However, I agree that it would be easy to read the two examples as one person. Given that a paragraph break is all that separates the two, there should not be a paragraph break in the middle of the second.

[simplystunned]

07:26 AM on 02/22/2011

No one ever heard of "(sic)" at the Times?

[justsomeguywhocameby]

06:31 AM on 02/22/2011

This is a completely predictable outcome of the current "It's been said" form of journalism.

It is extremely frustrating to read news articles that are sourced from "staffers who must remain anonymous".

[Crystal Syben Haidl]

09:14 AM on 02/22/2011

True Journalism has always depended upon "reputable anonymous" sources, as the bedrock of the first amendment protections, i.e.: Deep Throat and --using a new media example, of course -- WikiLeaks. The problem is that new media's allowances under the same first amendment rights easily converts the power of gossipy "opinions" to become the consensus of fact. The validity of "anonymity" is lost because the "sources" are neither verifiable by a reporter to be "reputable," nor, as DSWS states above, are the comments indicative of a broad consensus of many "anonymous" opinions. As I wrote yesterday in a HP post http://huff.to/gRFhCk about two sites that rely solely on Anonymously created URL sub domains that encourage anyone to append anyone else's name under a Jerk domain (that means you and me), it's our responsibility to demand some sort of regulatory accountability policies within first amendment allowances.That includes journalists accurately categorizing who Anonymous is, and correcting themselves when they discover their analysis was incomplete or wrong.

The EFF.org adamantly protects anonymity in seemingly all cases. The question is how do we as a society sort truthiness, especially as social media, more and more becomes our news and our public square, while protecting the Constitution?

[Pundit Commentator]

05:28 AM on 02/22/2011

agree with author!

[Kane]

01:41 AM on 02/22/2011

Holy Mackerel! I might agree with Jason Linkins on this one.

[gurukalehuru]

12:46 AM on 02/22/2011

Three misspellings in one line is not at all surprising from a Michele Bachmann supporter.

[kamachanda]

06:43 AM on 02/22/2011

Three misspellings in one line may be a new low for a Michele Bachmann supporter.

[simplystunned]

07:24 AM on 02/22/2011

Her supporters can write?

[SamEllison]

12:25 AM on 02/22/2011

Yesterday it was MoDo painting us with a wide brush,

today, oh never mind.......

[lightbulb10]

09:03 PM on 02/21/2011

There is still definitely something lodged in this guy.

[McGuffin18]

08:36 PM on 02/21/2011

Holio Macaronio, I might just have to b@rf on the Paid Lady on this one.

[emsique]

08:04 PM on 02/21/2011

Jason, I live overseas and use a proxy server. I'm really anonymous! Can I be one of your sources?

[Muzzle Me]

07:46 PM on 02/21/2011

"Random, unsourceable anonymous commentator"....Hmmm....sorta likethe articles posted here by paid HP authors that they take credit for or at least give them their storylines???

[imoverit]

08:34 PM on 02/21/2011

If that is the case, I would hope that the author would credit the author of the comment in the article. Anything less is disingenuous.

[lightbulb10]

09:03 PM on 02/21/2011

How funny. They scrimp.

[Edward Murray]

07:21 PM on 02/21/2011

Yeah, this kind of crap is just disgusting.

...Sorry I can't make myself anonymous so you could quote me on that.

[OliverTwist]

05:42 PM on 02/21/2011

Jason, you may notice that some of the Associated Press stories practice this same art of stringing together paragraphs that can be carelessly interpreted as being more closely related than they are. The most recent example that struck me was a story which about the recent demonstrations in Iran that lead from a paragraph about the current events to a paragraph about the revolution to a paragraph about crowds of hundreds of thousands. The sloppy reader might think these all related to the present events, whereas the close reader would realize that the revolution was the overthrow of the Shah and the crowds of hundreds of thousands were gathered in 1979 to support that overthrow.

[StevenWells]

06:23 PM on 02/21/2011

It's also a time-honored rhetorical trick employed on the campaign trial.

"I don't want to make accusations against (insert name of opponent), but I for one, don't want sex offenders running loose on our streets!" Of course, the opponent said nothing about wanting such a thing, but it leaves the impression they did, and come voting day, John Q. Citizen sees the opponent's name on the ballot and thinks, "Oh, he's the one who wants sex offenders running loose on the streets. Forget him!"

Only a slight exaggeration, but illustrative.

[Aroon]

05:12 PM on 02/21/2011

CNN & other media outlets also use the phrase "most of the people think" without giving any numbers!!! "Most of the people" actually might be the person sitting next to the TV commentator, for all practical purposes. Such is the journalistic trend in USA.

[hstdem]

11:42 PM on 02/21/2011

"Some people are saying..." is also a phrase CNN uses quite often.

[SamEllison]

12:47 AM on 02/22/2011

"It's been said", that's why I say it!

[kamachanda]

06:44 AM on 02/22/2011

They say "most of the people think", finally proof that CNN lies.