Our Elite Media seem to be up in arms over Mayhill Fowler's failure to identify herself as a journalist when she stood there with a tape recorder in a very crowded reception line and asked a question of Bill Clinton. Now as wacky as it is that Bill Clinton should have any expectation of privacy in such a public place during the Macaca era, the sanctimony of some of the leading pearl clutchers becomes even harder to swallow.
Politico's Michael Calderone criticized Off the Bus' Mayhill Fowler for criticizing Todd Purdum's "hatchet job" on Bill Clinton -- her words -- and for misrepresenting herself -- his word -- when she questioned and recorded Clinton ... and I, in turn, criticized Calderone parenthetically using this as an illustration of the clubbiness of the press. Calderone emailed me twice and then called me in short order to complain about my complaint and about the context (a discussion of race in newsrooms). We disagreed.
I arrived home and found a comment on my post that echoed his opinions closely under the name Mary. I looked up the IP and found it came from a Politico-related company. I responded to Mary and noted the source -- and the irony that this appeared to be a person at Politico misrepresenting herself. Calderone emailed me saying he did not write the comment -- which I hadn't said -- but acknowledged that a colleague did. He then left a comment on my post -- which is how I would have preferred this discussion to have happened, in public. I looked at the IP address and it was identical to Mary's. So I then asked him point-blank whether he wrote Mary's comment. He said he did not and I take him at his word. I suppose the IP is the company's firewall.
So I wrote to Politico's editor, John Harris, asking his policy and views for this post. (Here is the complete email exchange.) On reporters' identity, Harris said: "At Politico I expect reporters to identify themselves clearly as journalists when asking questions of public officials or average citizens alike. If there were exceptions to this, I would want as editor to be closely consulted about the reasons."
But then I was rather shocked at what he said about hidden identity in comments -- sockpuppetry: "My preference is that if Politico staff are going to engage in debates about journalism they do so with name attached. But the case of leaving comments on a blog or submitting a question to an on-line chat strikes me as not exactly involving sacred principles. When I was at the Post I would frequently send in questions under various to colleagues for their on-line chats, just to be mischievous. These days with a new publication I'm too busy for that nonsense. In any event, have you never done something similar?"
No, I have not. I am surprised that Harris would treat this as a prank even as he acknowledged that "Mary" not only did not reveal her Politico affiliation or reveal a last name but also gave a false first name. This is how you want your employees to act in a news organization? I would think that news organizations would be particularly sensitive to this after the cases of Lee Siegal of the New Republic and Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times.
I especially find it odd that Politico is not living up to the standard to which Calderone holds Mayhill Fowler. Why the slack? Well, after all, it's only a blog and only a comment, eh? Said Harris: "I don't get the fuss about the identity of the blog commenter."
At worst, Mayhill Fowler failed to identify herself. "Mary" was intentionally deceitful about her journalistic affiliation. That Politico, which is principally an online news source, should be so cavalier about journalists misleading people regarding their identity online is quite startling.
I guess the ethics of journalistic identification are for Mayhill Fowler alone, and for the benefit of the political class being covered. Readers, it seems, aren't owed that kind of transparency.
Jane Hamsher blogs at firedoglake.com
Follow Jane Hamsher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/janehamsher
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In order to compare the two, the presumed politico employee would have had to been posting comments on the blog as part of their job for the site and leaving off their identifica
I have no problem with Mayhill Fowler, citizen. But the notion of Fowler as a "Citizen Journalist
Journalist
They are also paid for their work.
HuffPo's "Off the Bus" program actually contribute
Then last week comes Huffington
In an age of declining newspaper readership
When you "hire" a "reporter" and don't either set standards or reward her efforts with a salary, you get what you pay for.
And when the media fail in their mission, as they have in the past eight years, it can be a pretty expensive lesson.
(In the interest of disclosure
This sounds like an ongoing focus group.
That's a fiction. The proliferat
Citizen journalism was at the heart of the founding of America and was central to the Founders' vision of accountabi
Yes, I would attribute your comment to the clubbiness of the press, but also to a short-sigh
Mayhill Fowler, Writer, Self employed
Barack Obama $2,224
Fred Thompson $250
Now, I ask you, how many other people in the world contribute
By the way, if you Google that address, it seems Mayhill is living in a $1.25 Million home, which might explain why this "citizen journalist
cable news had focused on Bill Clinton's three embarrassi
before. The focus of weekend campaign coverage immediatel
played over and over, out of context. Knowingly or not, Huffington Post aided and abetted Fowler
in doing damage control for the Clinton campaign.
Right now, even as I type, John McCain is using Bittergate against Obama. This appeared in an AP
story earlier this week about Tom Brokaw: "[Stories about] whether or not Clinton should get out were nearly matched by the 100 stories on Obama's remarks about bitter people turning to guns and religion, according to the PEJ's index. There were 243 stories about Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright..' Get it? Mayhill's slime about dishonestl
second only to his associatio
the presumptiv
Jeremiah Wright.
Never mind that Obama had made almost exactly the same remarks to Charlie Rose in 2004 in
a discussion of "What's the Matter with Kansas"?
I have no sympathy for Bill Clinton, but Fowler's TMZ tactics have not enhanced HuffPo's reputation
I do have mixed feelings: I want her OffTheBus, but I want to read jungpatawa
her insipid drivel.
Also, the fact that Mayhill Fowler is being simultaneo
*Mayhill was posing as a supporter on the rope line with Clinton (and at the Obama supporter meeting). She misreprese
However, "Mary" was joining the ALREADY ANONYMOUS world of Internet post/repli
Who knows who any of us are? If someone is a journalist
In other words, Mayhill was wrong to do what she did. "Mary"--wh
Ethics define how we are supposed to behave and not how we are required to behave. The latter is the law. But, in civil society, we should act in a certain way and the various codes that Journalist
Great journalism and journalist
If she scores a scoop with these methods, how are we supposed to train the next generation of journalist
Mayhill Fowler is a paparazzo journalist
Cheers!