Is a blogger a public figure or a private citizen? Alaskan blogger Shannyn Moore gives us the inside scoop.
The smackdown between Sarah Palin and Shannyn Moore gripped the blogosphere when Palin's lawyer singled out the lone blogger, along with powerful media companies like MSNBC and New York Times, and threatened to sue them for
defamation.
Moore's name lit up Google and a light bulb went off at the fledgling CyberFrequencies' headquarters.
"Hey do you have any extra rumors lying around for us?" Tanya asked Moore. "We'd love to get on the Keith Olbermann show like you."
"Believe me, it hasn't all been positive," Moore said.
When Palin named her, Moore says she put a "private citizen" at risk. Yes, she blogs on the Huffington Post and has a weekly radio show in Anchorage. But she paints homes to make ends meet.
Unlike a traditional reporter, she doesn't have a big radio station to foot the legal bills. And unlike politicians, she can't call the security detail when she or her family members are threatened.
What kind of threats?
"Off-the-record?" Moore asked.
Moore didn't want to come-off as a whiner and didn't want to enter a cat-fight with Governor Palin. She wanted to keep the conversation on the issues -- namely, Palin's governing.
But as she detailed the darkside of blogger fame, we pushed her go on-the-record because it raises a lot of interesting issues in the world of Blogging 2.0. (You can hear the complete interview on CyberRadio.)
"Certainly people are Googling my name and telling me, 'They'd really like it if I wasn't on the planet anymore to beat-up on their icon Sarah Palin.'"
Moore's gotten hate-emails that were scary "enough that I feel like I needed to protect my family." Her windshield was cracked since being called out -- coincidence?
I called Governor Palin's attorney Thomas Van Flein and asked him, "Let's say for a minute we agree that Moore is getting thousands "hate" emails since being named would the Governor come out publicly and tell them to "Stop?"
Van Flien said, "I don't think any public officer can take credit or blame or control [for] what some people do anonymously on the Internet."
So what do you think?
Should Governor Palin take a stand? Or does she have no control over the crazies out there?
Is a blogger a private citizen or a public figure?
Is calling out a blogger just like calling out a New York Times journalist?
Did Governor Palin put Moore at risk by publicly naming a "private citizen"?