I think everyone is misunderstanding the basic concern: it’s a basic ethic of journalism that a reporter doesn’t pretend to be a non-reporter, doesn’t pretend to be a joe citizen, in order to clandestinely get info from a source. It’s sort of basic etiquette to indentify oneself right away, before asking questions.
Of course, like all rules, there are exceptions to this one, too. But they should be slim and rarely used, and only for big things.
I figure what happened here is that Clinton thought he was talking to a woman in the crowd, a member of the public, so he was more candid than he would be if he thought he was “on the record.”
Doesn’t mean he was more truthful, of course: he might be just as prone to lie to a member of the public as to a reporter, MSM or blogger.
Now, with big public figures like Clinton, I have less concern about a reporter identifying himself: Bill’s a big boy and has to figure anything he says in public could be used against him later.
And I congratulate this blogger for getting good stuff. . .(although getting Bill to uncork about a Vanity Fair reporter, using nasty words, isn’t much of a “get”, journalistically.) The SF Obama stuff was more substantive.
But the journalistic rule, aside from MSM snits about bloggers, is a good one: journalists should be open and honest about who they are, not sneaking around secretly taping people’s conversations.
Or letting public figures think the reporter is just a member of the crowd asking an “innocent” question.
It’s just not cricket.
