Two days ago I was terminated from my engagement as a freelance blogger at the Cleveland Plain Dealer-sponsored group blog "Wide Open" after Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Bainbridge Township) of the 14th Ohio Congressional District, apparently in retaliation for my previous blogging about his re-election campaign and my financial support for two of his election opponents, complained to the Plain Dealer about my participation.
This sorry episode is freighted with implications for the growing intersection of traditional and internet media, the definition and relationship of the roles of "reporter" and "blogger," and the meaning of journalistic independence in an era of corporate ownership of media outlets and cozy relationships between those who control the media and powerful politicians. For me personally, it is a story of tremendous disillusionment, due to both the apparent readiness of a respected newspaper to yield to pressure from an elected official, and the readiness of that official to manipulate the newspaper to retaliate against a critic.
The story begins in August when the Cleveland Plain Dealer hired four Ohio political bloggers to contribute to its experimental political group blog "Wide Open." In order to assure balance, two bloggers with liberal leanings were chosen, and two with conservative leanings. The other participants were Jill Miller Zimon of Writes Like She Talks, Tom Blumer of BizzyBlog, and Dave of Nixguy. Nobody asked at that time if we had made political contributions or done work for candidates, an inquiry that would have seemed ridiculous in any event since we were being engaged as partisan advocates for our political points of view. The project officially got underway on September 24th.
I did not ever write about Rep. Steve LaTourette at Wide Open. However, my participation in the project soon came to his attention. Although I have not personally met the man, I believe that I am well known to him. I had written extensively on my own blog, Ohio2006 (now moved to Ohio Daily Blog), about LaTourette's 2006 re-election contest. I explicitly supported his challenger, law professor Lew Katz (D-Pepper Pike). I also wrote about him being named in the Jack Abramoff corruption investigation, and what I regard as the suspicious connection between large amounts of campaign cash LaTourette received from the Ratner family of Cleveland, of the Forest City real estate empire, and their receiving an enormous contract to develop 44 acres of the Southeast Federal Center in Washington DC. (LaTourette was Chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management which oversees the General Services Administration, the agency that awarded the contract.) My wife and I also contributed a modest amount to Katz campaign.
I have been told by Cleveland Online Editor Jean Dubail that Rep. LaTourette complained about my involvement in "Wide Open" to Cleveland Plain Dealer Editorial Page Editor Brent Larkin. I was also informed that LaTourette brought up the matter of my participation during an interview with Cleveland Plain Dealer political reporter Sabrina Eaton, when she talked to LaTourette about the retirement of Rep. Dave Hobson (R-Springfield). LaTourette mentioned that I had contributed the sum of $100 to the campaign of LaTourette's current opponent, former appellate judge Bill O'Neill (D-South Russell). Eaton suggested that LaTourette raise his concerns with more senior people at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. However, as a result of that conversation, Eaton reported my contribution in her story about third quarter campaign fund-raising by various Ohio Congressional candidates.
Cleveland Plain Dealer Online Editor Jean DuBail raised the matter of LaTourette's displeasure with my participation in "Wide Open" in discussions with the four bloggers on at least two occasions. He told us that LaTourette had said he would no longer talk to the newspaper, although he minimized the impact of such a threat. We discussed the possibility of my making a disclosure of my support for LaTourette's opponents whenever I wrote anything about LaTourette on "Wide Open." I resisted the idea, preferring some sort of general notice to the public that we are all partisans. However, the occasion for making a specific disclosure had not yet come up, since I had not yet mentioned LaTourette on "Wide Open."
Two days ago Dubail called and asked if I would agree to never write about LaTourette on "Wide Open," as a condition of my continued participation. The issue was framed in terms of my $100 contribution to O'Neill, with Dubail saying that Susan Goldberg, Editor of the Plain Dealer, could not accept that I might write about LaTourette on the newspaper's blog while supporting his opponent. This came as a shock to me, as it seemed a significant escalation from our prior conversations about LaTourette's displeasure with my participation, and the condition was so utterly and obviously unacceptable. When asked, Dubail confirmed that the arrangement was sought by Goldberg. In the course of that conversation he told me that Goldberg had asked him to fire me a week earlier, but Dubail had resisted. When I declined to agree to the arrangement, after further consultation with Goldberg by Dubail, I was terminated by Dubail.
It is clear to me that I was terminated due to LaTourette's intervention. My fellow liberal blogger Jill Miller Zimon had made political contributions and was not terminated, although she has made political contributions. (She resigned from "Wide Open" the follwing day.) I have made political contributions to other candidates, but only the LaTourette contribution was an issue. There was no policy against political contributions by paid bloggers until it was necessary to have such a policy in order to fire me (or, at least, to attempt to mollify the congressman). The policy makes no sense, in any event, since the role of the bloggers on Wide Open was to be partisans, not neutral observers. Syndicated columnists and guest op-ed authors are paid to express their partisan opinions, and no fuss is made about whether they have made political contributions or worked to support candidates.
As a political blogger, I am a partisan. My political orientation as a progressive Democrat is an integral part of what I do and is completely transparent to my readers. This is a crucial component of being a political blogger/activist, and sets us apart from journalists in the classic sense. It was understood among the four participants in "Wide Open" that we are political partisans and that we would engage in political debate from our respective political points of view.
While a rule against political contributions may make sense as applied to reporters, whose job description is to gather facts about a story and then present them in a single, balanced report, it makes no sense as applied to partisan bloggers, especially in a format where bloggers from opposing viewpoints square off in a debate. For a partisan blogger, political contributions are not an ethical conflict but a credential, proof of the blogger's partisan zeal. If a newspaper's goal is to hire partisans to fill the role of partisan bloggers, it is simply foolish to rule out people who make political contributions -- those are the core of the hiring pool.
If I had remained at "Wide Open" and had then written about LaTourette, I may have decided to mention my contribution as part of my story. If I did not, however, I can guarantee that it would have been brought up as part of the ensuing comment thread, either by one of my fellow conservative bloggers or by a member of the commenting public, all of whom are on the internet and have instant access to FEC contribution data. This just further confirms that a policy against political contributions by partisan bloggers is nonsensical.
I am extremely disappointed that the Cleveland Plain Dealer bowed to pressure from an elected official, to the extent of attempting to limit what a freelance political blogger could write on a hosted group blog and of terminating the services of the blogger to please the official. To me, this sad episode strikes a heavy blow at freedom of expression and the purported journalistic independence of a once proud newspaper. Of course, I am also appalled at this petty exercise of political power by Rep. LaTourette to retaliate against a critic. I do not believe that a congressman who stoops to the level of manipulating a newspaper to strike back at a critic deserves to remain in office. Most of all, however, I am disappointed that an exciting attempt to meld the worlds of traditional print media and blogging appears to have failed. It was a collision of two paradigms, in which the older paradigm utterly failed to grasp the newer, and an exercise in political clout precipitated the demise of a promising new venture.