Hahn: You have it bass ackwards: there are two actors here: the journalist and/or blogger, and the public figure/source.
Each has his own responsibilities and obligations and worries.
I am talking about the journalist/blogger’s: you should identify yourself before interviewing people. It’s 1.) simply courtesy 2.)it’s a professional ethic; so the source knows what is being said is subject to publication. Believe it or not, this ethic is taken seriously at newspapers, to the point that it’s considered unethical to call around to gas stations to find out the prices if the caller doesn’t first identify himself as a reporter for such and such newspaper. It’s not a way of “warning off Democrats” from saying something stupid…” That’s a weird idea… there’s all kinds of bias in the MSM and most of it (nearly all of it) leftish… but it don’t work like that.
I can’t see what everyone can’t see about this (does that make sense?);
Now, big ol’ billy clinton has to take care of himself, and realize anything he says in public or even private might end up published, on tv, or in a blog,; sure.
but that plain fact of life doesn’t speak to the ethical obligation of a reporter/blogger to simply identify themselves before starting an interview….
The perspective of many on this thread is so weirdly perverse, it’s like someone saying: lots of men commit adultery, so the divine command not to do it is stoooopid and out of date…..
Gads, grow up.
There’s facts on the ground and there’s ethics.
You can’t always choose your facts, but you can choose your ethic.
Now tell me, Hahn boy, do you think it’s better for bloggers and/or reporters to NOT identify themselves before they start interviewing someone?
Are you going to sit there (in your pajamas. Please, Lord, tell me you are wearing pajamas,cuz the alternative is sort of scary) and tell me you would NOT be infuriated with a newspaper reporter who dressed in shorts, tshirt, sandals and sunglasses, bumped into you outside some, say, political event, and asked you about stuff, pretending to be just a passerby, all the while secretly taping it, and then posted it, video, audio, online and published it in a newspaper? Even if you said nothing salacious or slanderous or stupid, I’m betting you would be ticked off like heck.
Why?
Well, that’s what I’m sayin’….
I’m not saying bloggers have to do this or that.
I am suggesting that it seems to me that this ethic is a good one for bloggers, too.
In general.
Yes, the world has changed.
I love blogging. I love bloggers. in general and in theory.
Doesn’t mean that the courtesy and ethic of being upfront about who you are and what you are doing isn’t a good one for bloggers to adhere to.
Where do you stand on the adultery thing, anyway?
(this is on the record.)
