Due to new technology and the Internet, the definition of a journalist is expanding. Many Web sites now provide platforms for ordinary people, or “citizen journalists” to post news they have created themselves. On such site, iReport.com, allows users to upload news-related articles and videos they have created. The site is run by CNN.com and becoming a “journalist” for the site involves nothing more than filling out a short form and providing an e-mail address. iReport.com does not screen, edit or fact-check uploaded content and makes not guarantee of the accuracy of anything on the site. It’s tagline is “Unedited. Unfiltered. News.”

In November of 2008, a first-time user of the site, identified only as johntw, posted an article in which he claimed that Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital after suffering a “major heart attack.” Johntw claimed he had gathered the information from a source who wished to remain anonymous but who was highly reliable. However, none of what johntw wrote was true.

The article was quickly flagged by another user and removed by iReport.com and denied by Apple within an hour. However, the false report continued to spread to similar news sites and blogs all over the Internet, causing Apple shares to fall. Hours later, Google Trends still categorized the topic as “super hot.”

Apple shareholders were already concerned with Jobs’ health after his bout with pancreatic cancer a few years ago. Reports about the damage to Apple stocks are conflicting, but stocks fell up to 10 percent that day, recovering slightly by the time the rumor was debunked by iReport.com and Apple. Apple ended the day down 3 percent.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is currently investigating the situation. iReport.com has been cooperative in the investigation and has unsuccessfully tried to contact johntw. So far his identity has not been uncovered by either CNN or the SEC.

The intentions of the user johntw also remain unknown. If discovered, intention to hurt Apple’s stock could warrant a case against the suspect by the SEC.

There has been much discussion over what this incident means about the validity and credibility of citizen journalism. One writer brought up the incident on a similar citizen journalism site, NowPublic. She wrote, “Some commentators claimed that the incident had damaged CNN’s credibility, and that it represented a failure of citizen journalism. But it was not citizen journalism that had failed; what the incident demonstrated was that people were willing to act on and rebroadcast an unverified report without first checking the facts.”

A writer for ReadWriteWeb wrote that the incident will most definitely damage CNN’s credibility.

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Works cited

-Karp, S. (2008). False Steve Jobs Heart Attack Report on CNN’s iReport Is a Failure of Open Systems. Publishing 2.0. Retrieved February 15, 2009 from http://publishing2.com/2008/10/03/false-steve-jobs-heart-attack-report-on-cnns-ireport-is-a-failure-of-open-systems/

-Nixon, R.(2008). False Report on Steve Jobs Heart Attack: 2008 in Review. NowPublic. Retrieved February 15, 2009 from http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/10-false-report-steve-jobs-heart-attack-2008-review

-Quinn, M. (2008). Apple shares fall on false report. Lost Angeles Times. Retrieved February 15, 2009 from http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/04/business/fi-apple

-Scheer, D. (2008). Teen is said to have faked story about Apple’s Jobs. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved February 15, 2009 from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ahAlYCNB4qVo

Shortly after Barack Obama’s inauguration, BBC’s Newsnight show ran a 50-minute special program on the beginning of Obama’s presidency titled “Obama’s first 100 days: Environment.” It opened the program with what seemed to be a sound excerpt from Obama’s inauguration address playing along with video clips of nature scenes and scientific looking buildings. In reality, the sound bite was three different sentences from different parts of Obama’s speech spliced together. The edited sound bite had an obvious focus on the environment and scientific advancement:
“We will restore science to its rightful place, roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.”

The first part of sentence one comes from paragraph 13 of Obama’s speech, the second part of sentence one comes from paragraph 20 and sentence two comes from later in paragraph 13. Paragraphs 13 and 20 of the speech did not focus on science or the environment but rather covered a wide range of topics including the economy, health care and foreign policy.

The full sentence associated with the first part of the clip read, “We’ll restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” This sentence referred to scientific advancements improving health care and not fighting global warming as the clip would suggest.

The full sentence associated with the second part of sentence one read, “With old friends and former foes, we’ll work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet,” and may have simply referred to nuclear arms and not global warming as the clip suggested. The sound bites were spliced to make it seem as though Obama had devoted a significant part of the speech to address his hopes for scientific progress.

Immediately after the clip, the show’s host said, “President Obama couldn’t have been clearer today and for most scientists his vote of confidence could not have come a moment too soon.”

Though the editing may not have been big news in the United States, it caused quite a stir in the Internet and blogging world. BBC’s communications manager, Karen Rosine defended BBC’s choice in an e-mail to Poynter Online: “We edited sections of the speech to reflect the elements in it that referred to science as a way to give people an impression or montage of what Obama said about science in his inauguration speech… It in no way altered the meaning or misrepresented what the president was saying.”

A line from BBC’s ethical guidelines states, “We strive to be accurate and establish the truth of what has happened.”

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Works cited

-Obama’s first 100 days: Environment. BBC News. Retrieved on February 15, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/7841946.stm

-Perry, S. (2008). Unethical Editing: BBC Botches Obama Speech–On Purpose. Open Salon. Retrieved on February 15, 2009 from http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=93929

-Tompkins, A. (2008). BBC’s Edit of Obama’s Inauguration Speech Raises Important Ethical Questions. Poynter Online. Retrieved on February 15, 2009 from http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=157529

By Natalie Johnson, Dotcom journalists

In December of 2003 the Wichita, Kansas television station KCTV-Channel 5 teamed up with the Web site Perverted-Justice.com and began an investigation to discover and reveal Internet predators in the area. Volunteers from the site posed as adolescent boys and girls in Internet chat rooms and set up meetings with men who solicited them for sex online, giving them the address of a home that the station had rented.

One by one, 16 men showed up at the home on the date they had scheduled with the supposed children, believing they were coming there to have sex with them. When they arrived there they were confronted by the team from Channel 5 and Perverted-Justice.com, including investigative reporter Steve Chamraz. The encounters were filmed and made into a six-part special report that aired on the Channel 5 evening news in February of 2004.

Although news stations have done similar reports before, Channel 5 may have been the first station to actually show the faces and give the names of the alleged predators. The series was widely popular in Wichita and boosted the station’s ratings during the February sweeps.

One man who was lured the home and featured in the story went on to sue the CBS network, Perverted-justice.com and Meredith Broadcasting, Channel 5’s parent company. The man, who was only identified as John Doe in the lawsuit, claimed that he never propositioned the girl he chatted with and was wrongfully portrayed as a pedophile on the show, causing him to loose his job. Two days after the show aired, Doe was fired from his $50,000 a year job. Doe also began receiving angry phone calls after the transcript of his chat was posted on Perverted-justice.com.

The transcript of the chat later revealed that Doe had never asked for or described a sexual act during the chat and the volunteer posing as a young girl had been the one who brought sex up. Doe’s attorney said that the whole conversation was joking and Doe never intended to meet up with the girl. Doe never even got an address from the person he chatted with and only went to the home after receiving a call from an older-sounding woman who claimed to be the same girl and offered to give him oral sex if he came over.

Chamraz defended Channel 5 and the series, saying, “We never called anyone a pedophile.” They did, however, refer to the men as “Internet predators” who “wanted to have sex with underage teens.” As of March 11, 2004, the lawsuit was still pending.

Perverted-justice.com went on to team up with a Portland-area station to do the same type of report on Internet predators. The show that aired in Portland showed an older woman making follow-up phone calls with the men they chatted with online.

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Works cited

-The Sting. (2008). Retrieved February 4, 2009 from Society of Professional Journalists Web site: http://www.spj.org/ecs3.asp

-Ortega, T. (2004). Jail Baited. Retrieved February 4, 2009 from The Pitch Kansas City Web site: http://www.pitch.com/2004-03-11/news/jail-baited/1

Allen Kraus had been praised for his office’s efforts to uncover fraud when he was deputy commissioner of the New York City Human Resources Administration (Hoyt, 2007). But when he got a new boss, everything changed.

Kraus disagreed with his new boss, Commissioner Barbara J. Sabol, over budget and staffing issues and resigned in June 1991, having headed the agency for four years (Hoyt). Six weeks later, his boss announced his resignation in a press release dealing with an investigation of his office that led to multiple arrests in fraud and bribery (Hoyt).

A Goolge Search of 'Allen Kraus' on Feb. 17, 2009

The New York Times reported about the fraud investigation and in the article Sabol implied that Kraus had resigned under pressure in light of the investigation and poor oversight in his office (Morgan, 6 held). Kraus was not interviewed. The article detailed the announcement of arrests and warrants for 27 people connected to a multimillion dollar welfare fraud scheme, including bribery of city employees.

Investigators found more than 800 cases in which payments and food stamps were not properly disbursed, costing the city $9.3 million (Morgan). The investigation had been going on since January with some of the fraudulent claims dating back to 1986 (Morgan).

Kraus, angered by the report, contacted Sabol and the New York Times. Sabol later issued a press release that said there was no evidence of criminal culpability on Kraus’ part and his resignation was not connected to the investigation.

Morgan wrote a second, shorter article after now interviewing Kraus, giving his side of the story. Kraus said his office had first identified the fraud scheme and alerted investigators and that Sabol didn’t discuss the investigation or any problems with his management with him.

All of this happened more than 16 years ago. Now the New York Times archives are available online and Kraus, in 2007, was forming a health forming a health consulting business with clients across the United States. But the first thing that was popping up on a Google search for his name was not the home page of his business, but the New York Times articles implying his connection to the fraud case.

He contacted the New York Times and wanted them taken down, fearing its costing him clients.

Kraus is not the only one to make such requests to the Times, which receives at least one complaint a day that someone is concerned about an article that appears in their Google search either because of embarrassment, error or lack of followup (Hoyt).

The New York Times’ response has generally been the same: do nothing. Removing articles from archives is like removing it from the historical record, editors said (Hoyt). But, editors also recognized that the Internet has opened up material that was once only available on microfilm in the newspaper’s or the public library and questioned their obligation to minimize harm (Hoyt).

Then-public editor Clark Hoyt took on the topic in his column in August 2007, providing Kraus as an example cause and suggesting that in such cases something must be done. However, the solution is not clear. He cited options such as re-reporting challenged stories, pulling them from archives, and tricking the archives so they appear lower in the search among others. All of these solutions present a challenge based on the number of requests publications like the New York Times receives (Hoyt).

Hoyt’s column was addressed and attacked by members of the media community. The Poynter Institute responded by creating their own question and answer on what they do when they receive requests to “unpublish,” or take articles off the Web. They agreed that solutions are difficult, that taking an article down is one of the very last things considered and suggested appending a note or a flag to the article that it’s in error if there is evidence that it is incorrect as another solution (Steele & Mitchell, 2007).

Jack Shafer of Slate.com pointed out that Hoyt didn’t provide evidence of harm done to Kraus’ reputation and said it was a non-issue. The idea that a link in a Google search is indicative of someone’s reputation he deemed silly, suggesting that it is the searchers fault for jumping to conclusions not a problem of the Web or the New York Times (Shafer, Part 1).

Shafer’s solution was for people like Kraus to do something about it themselves rather than petitioning the New York Times. He recommended purchasing their own domain names, putting their resumes on it, linking to stories that explain what actually happen, and persuading others to link to it to boost its rankings in a Google search.

Following Shafer’s column, software architect Jon Garkunkel, who blogs at Civilities.net, started working to push Kraus’ existing home page up in the rankings. He said the reason it was invisible was because nobody linked to it. He suggested other sites give him a little link love and soon his personal site was at the top of the search (Shafter, Part 2).

Today the two New York Times stories don’t even appear in a Google search, at least not within the first 10 pages. Aside from his personal site which is currently at the top, most of the links are related to Hoyt’s article.

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Works cited

-Hoyt, C. (2007, Aug. 26). When bad news follows you. New York Times. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/opinion/26pubed.html?pagewanted=1&n=Top/Opinion/The%20Public%20Editor&_r=1

-Morgan, T. (1991, July 12). 6 held in welfare fraud scheme; inquiry uncovered worker bribes. New York Times. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2009, from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0D61F3CF931A25754C0A967958260&scp=5&sq=%22Allen+Kraus%22+New+York+City+Human+Resources+Administration&st=nyt

—-. (1991, July 13). A welfare official denies he resigned because of inquiry. New York Times. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2009, from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEEDE1E31F930A25754C0A967958260&scp=1&sq=%22Allen+Kraus%22+New+York+City+Human+Resources+Administration&st=nyt

-Shafer, J. (2007, Aug. 27). Blaming the Times for your bad reputation. Slate.com. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2009, from http://www.slate.com/id/2172701/

—-. (2007, Sept. 6). Blaming the Times for your bad reputation Part 2. Slate.com. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2009, from http://www.slate.com/id/2173501/

-Steele, B. & Mitchell, B. (2007, Aug. 28). Removing content: When to unring the bell. Poynter Institute. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2009, from http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=129083

Chez Pazienza has been working in television news and production for the past 16 years. His has produced and managed daily content for WSVN and WTVJ in Miami, KCBS, KNBC and KCAL in Los Angeles, and MSNBC. His earned two Emmy’s for his work in Los Angeles, and has also received a Golden Mic award. In January of 2004, Pazienza joined CNN’s staff. He started out doing general work and assignments for the company’s Atlanta, Georgia office. From Atlanta, he moved to New York and worked on “CNN Daybreak.” He then moved on to become a senior produce on “American Morning.”

In May 2006, Pazienza began a blog titled “Deus Ex Malcontent: Making a Mockery of Mockery.” He told the New York Times that he started the blog as a way to keep his mind occupied during the several months he was on medical leave from CNN after an operation that removed a brain tumor. The content includes entries similar to a personal journal, including entries about recovering from surgery as well as past relationships. The blog also explores thoughts about mass media and culture, and he includes links to other sites, including some of his favorite music videos. Many descriptions of the blog cite it as highly opinionated and clearly having been written from a liberal bias. The blog does not identify Pazienza as being in any way affiliated with CNN, although his self description does identify him as working in television and as having won his Emmy’s and Golden Mic award. He said he also never wrote about issues or topics that related to his work at CNN. The blog started to gain attention from other sites that carried related content, as well as by a news aggregate site. Later, Pazienza was also recruited as a blogger for the Huffington Post.

In mid-February of 2008, Pazienza’s boss at CNN, Ed Litvak, told him the company had found Pazienza’s posts, written without CNN’s approval. Shortly afterward, on Tuesday, February 19, 2008, Pazienza was fired from CNN. He announced the termination on his blog. He claims the dismissal was because CNN found his blog and its contents to violate the news outlet’s standards for journalists. Throughout his career at CNN, Pazienza did not receive negative feedback about his ethical decisions on the job, nor about his overall performance. Pazienza said his work for the Huffington Post was not mentioned in conjunction with his dismissal. CNN also claimed at the time that it did not know of any other CNN employees who maintained blogs linked to a specific individual. Litvak and the Human Resources representative cited CNN’s policy at the time that all writing published with an organization unaffiliated with CNN had to be cleared through the network’s standards and practices department. The letter explaining the official grounds for the dismissal cited the previous reasoning, as well as that the nature of what Pazienza was writing for his blog was questionable by CNN. CNN spokeswoman Barbara Levin in various media interviews said she could not comment on personnel matters, but did restate CNN’s policy about writing outside of the organization’s affiliations.

Since his dismissal, Pazienza has continued to maintain his blog, as well as posts for the Huffington Post. On August 1, 2008, he posted an entry on “Deus Ex Malcontent” that included CNN’s revised policy regarding “personal writings online.” In 2008 he also published a memoir titled Dead Star Twilight. He currently lives in New York City with his wife and daughter. His current profile on “Deus Ex Malcontent” describes him as a writer and ex-TV producer.

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Related links

U.S. News and World Report: 5 ways your computer could get you fired at work

Romenesko, from the Poynter Institute: CNN producer claims he was fired for blogging

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Works cited

-Chan, Sewell. (2008). CNN producer says he was fired for blogging. The New York Times, City Room blog. Retrieved from http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/cnn-producer-says-he-was-fired-for-blogging/?scp=1&sq=cnn%20fires%20bloggers&st=cse

-Huffington Post. (2009). Chez Pazienza. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chez-pazienza

-Pazienza, Chez. (2009, February 5). Deus ex malcontent: making a mockery of mockery. Retrieved from http://www.deusexmalcontent.com/

-Poynter Online. (2009, February 5). CNN producer claims he was fired for blogging. Retrieved from http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=138095

-Wolgemuth, Liz. (2008, February 5). 5 ways your computer use can get you fired. US News & World Report. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/careers/2008/03/11/5-ways-your-computer-use-can-get-you-fired.html

Alana Taylor is a journalism and history student at New York University. In the summer of 2008, she was asked by PBS to begin posting guest entries on the organization’s Media Shift blog. She did not receive payment for her work. Taylor posted her first entry on Sept. 5, 2008, titled “Old Thinking Permeates Journalism School.” The entry focused on her only journalism class that term, Reporting Gen. Y, which aimed to explore how Generation Y used new technology differently than previous audiences, and how to utilize this technology in journalistic reporting. Taylor’s entry was critical in several ways.

First, she writes about her disappointment with NYU’s journalism program as a whole, specifically its lack of courses about digital media and the shifting employment requirements for online vs. print journalism. Her second main criticism is that she is the only student in a room of 16 students that had a blog. She also wrote that her professor, Mary Quigley, did not understand the uses of social media even though she was teaching about them. Finally, Taylor wrote about her frustration with having to bring a print copy of The New York Times to class each day, saying that she wished the class was open to online news sources or at least non-traditional media.

The blog post was picked up as a top story on the Poynter Institute’s Romenesko page, of which Quigley was an avid reader. On September 18, Gawker.com also posted an entry about the incident. (The site posted another entry September 26). According to a September 17 post on Media Shift, Quigley told Taylor it was an invasion of privacy to the other students in the class for Taylor to blog about it. She also was upset that Taylor did not ask Quigley’s permission before posting the entry. Taylor was told by Quigley that she was no longer allowed to blog or live-Twitter from the class. Brooke Kroeger, director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at NYU, told Media Shift’s Mark Glaser that the university did not have a policy on blogging in or about a class. Kroeger said it was an individual classroom policy decision that could be made by professors about their own classrooms. She did, however, defend Quigley’s decision to restrict blogging and live-Twittering in class, saying the practice would be distracting in a classroom. In a response to Glaser, Quigley said she asked students not to email, text, or use cell phones during class, but that they were free to blog or comment on the course in any manner they felt (Twitter, Facebook, blog, etc).

Another concern around Taylor’s post was the limited scope of her reporting as an embedded journalist for Media Shift. Adam Penenberg, an assistant professor at NYU and chairman of the journalism department’s ethics committee, told Michael Getle of PBS’ Ombudsman blog that he felt Taylor’s post was not sufficiently researched, did not include balanced interviews, did not identify herself to the class as being a writer for the national PBS affiliate. He questioned if the blog post violated PBS’ editorial standards regarding deception. In e-mail exchanges with Penenberg, Glaser said he agreed Taylor should’ve gotten her professor’s permission beforehand. Taylor told Glaser, and also wrote on her personal blog “Alana Taylor,” that she had originally planned to write two entries, and would’ve included interviews and her professor’s perspective in the second post. In his Media Shift entry on the situation, Glaser also discussed the hypocrisy of an institution such as NYU teaching students about the First Amendment and how to practice journalism, but at the same time limiting free speech and not allowing the use of the tools it was teaching in its classrooms, such as twitter and blogging. Taylor is currently still enrolled at NYU. She also writes for Mashable, a blog about social media. She also does freelance social media consulting for Classic Media, Inc. and Halo Pets.

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Works cited

-Getler, M. (2008). Some dubious links for pbs.org. Ombudsman. Retrieved February 16,
2009 from http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/2008/09/some_dubious_links
_for_pbsorg.html

-Glaser, M. (2008). NYU professor stifles blogging, twittering by journalism student.
MediaShift. Retrieved February 16, 2009, from http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/09/nyu-professor-stifles-blogging-twittering-by-journalism-student261.html

-Romenesko, J. (2008). NYU student who wrote about her j-class says she’s been silenced. Romenesko. Retrieved February 16, 2009 from http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=150773

-Shiela. (2008). “Embedded” blogger-journalism student confuses the hell out of PBS. Journalismism. Retrieved February 16, 2009 from http://gawker.com/5055530/embedded-blogger+journalism-student-confuses-the-hell-out-of-pbs

-Shiela. (2008). Journalism prof banns blogging about class. Journalismism. Retrieved February 16, 2009 from http://gawker.com/5051737/journalism-prof-bans-blogging-about-class

-Taylor, A. (2008). Alana Taylor. Retrieved February 16, 2009 from http://www.alanataylor.com/2008_09_01_archive.html

-Taylor, A. (2008). Old thinking permeates major journalism school. MediaShift. Retrieved February 16, 2009 from http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/09/old-thinking-permeates major-journalism-school249.html

David Spett is a student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. On Feb. 11, 2008, he published an opinions column in the forum section of the dailynorthwestern.com. In the article, he accused the dean of Medill, John Lavine, of fabricating three anonymous quotes in two different columns in a 2007 issue of the school’s alumni magazine. Spett said he was suspicious of the quotes because they used language he felt was not common for his generation. He also felt the nature of the quotes did not require the use of an anonymous source. The quotes were all attributed to students, and had to do with that student’s liking of particular courses offered in the Medill school.

In an interview with Spett, Lavine claimed the quotes came to him from students through his e-mail. However, he could not remember the names or genders of the students, and could not find the e-mails. Spett also interviewed all 29 students from the advertising course and none of them claimed the statements as their own. David Protess, Spett’s investigating reporting professor, phoned all 29 students and confirmed Spett’s reporting. Also in that interview, Lavine told Spett that even if he had the name of the student, he would not have tried to confirm the statement because he felt the magazine’s form of journalism, which focused more on public relations and marketing that straight reporting, did not require the same level of journalism as other publications, or what the journalism school required of its students.

Spett’s column brought national attention to the issue. Several national news outlets picked up the story, including the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune. In an interview with National Public Radio, Spett was asked if his story led to a spinoff of complaints from students at the school that Lavine was blurring the lines between the journalism and marketing programs through extensive changes to the journalism curriculum at the school. Lavine became the Medill dean in 2005 after founding and directing the school’s Media Management Center. When he took the position, he suspended formal faculty oversight of the school’s curriculum for a 3 1/2-year transition period, which angered many of the faculty, according to an article in the online edition of the Chicago Reader.

On February 20, 2008, a group of Medill students posted a demand on the Poynter Institute’s Romenesko blog asking for a former explanation from Lavine, or at least that he produce his notes or sources for the stories. Sixteen faculty members also signed an official letter asking for a more complete explanation of the dean’s actions, or for him to provide notes from the stories. It was delivered to Lavine with a cover letter signed by professors Craig LaMay, Donna Leff, and David Protess, all of whom taught ethics classes in the journalism school. Lavine also sent a note to the entire faculty of the school insisting that the quotes came from legitimate sources. He pointed to a video made by a group of Medill sophomores using the same sort of enthusiastic language as the quotes in question. Lavine later issued an apology for the incident on a blog set up by Medill students as a community forum for the journalism school. Lavine said he had exercised poor judgment in the situation and that he and other faculty would review the standards and policies for all work published under the Medill banner.

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Related links

Chicago Reader: Did Medill’s Dean Lavine make up a quote?,

NU faculty turn on Dean Lavine,

NU faculty rips Medill

Chicago Tribune: Why Northwestern’s “Quotegate” really is a big deal

OJR: Readers really will check everything

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Works cited

-Barron, Noah. (2008). Readers will check everything. OJR. Retrieved February 16, 2009 from
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/080303barron/

-Miner, Michael. (2008). Did Medill’s dean Lavine make up a quote? News Bites. Retrieved February 16, 2009 from http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/news-bites/2008/02/12/did-medills-dean-lavine-make-quote/

—-. (2007). NU faculty rips Medill. News Bites. Retrieved February 16, 2009 from http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/news-bites/2007/06/22/nu-faculty-rips-medill/

—-. (2008). NU faculty turn on Lavine. News Bites. Retrieved February 16, 2009 from http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/news-bites/2008/02/19/nu-faculty-turn-dean-lavine/

-Zorn, Eric. (2008). Why Northwestern’s “Quotegate” really is a big deal. Change of Subject. Retrieved February 16, 2009 from http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2008/02/why-northwester.html

]]> http://dotcomjournalists.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/blurring-the-standards-in-marketing-and-journalism/feed/ 0 joybacon http://dotcomjournalists.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/bittergate-is-there-such-a-thing-as-off-the-record/ http://dotcomjournalists.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/bittergate-is-there-such-a-thing-as-off-the-record/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:26:12 +0000 Jasmine Linabary http://dotcomjournalists.wordpress.com/?p=8 ]]> By Jasmine Linabary, Dotcom Journalists

Mayhill Fowler, 61, was much like the others at an invite-only fundraiser for presidential candidate Barack Obama in April 2008 in San Francisco – she was an avid support living in the Bay Area, having contributed nearly the maximum allowed, $2,300, and was holding a recorder. What made her different was that she was also a citizen journalist – a regular contributor to OffTheBus, a blog maintained by a network of 1,800 writers created by the Huffington Post to cover the the campaign (Seelye, 2008).

Fowler had secured an invite to the event because she was known to many mid-level finance officers in the campaign from her contributions (Rosen, 2008). The New York Times reported that she had not initially been invited but asked a friend if she could go and was put on the list for the last of four campaign events, a fundraiser event at a mansion in Pacific Heights. Her active contributions to OffTheBus where also well known, as she had previously written about other fundraiser events of both the Hillary Clinton and Obama campaigns (Rosen).

The fundraiser was closed to the press and Fowler was not labeled as a citizen journalist, but neither were there specifications not to blog about the event or conditions attached to the invitation (Rosen). More than 350 people were in attendance that day in California, many recording Obama’s speech using cell phones, small video cameras and flips. Even though it was a “closed-door fundraiser”, Fowler said there was an assumption that since there was an open use of recorders and an invitation to a known citizen journalist that the event was blogable (Rosen).

Fowler held her recorder out openly as Obama spoke. Initially, she recognized that he was giving his “stump” speech, one that she had heard on several occasions before, and contemplated leaving. She stayed, hoping to catch something new. And she did.

A man in the crowd said he was going to Pennsylvania that week to knock on doors for the campaign and asked what he should expect and know before he arrived. Obama had recently been through Pennsylvania on part of his “Road to Change” bus tour, his first visit to the state and its people (Fowler, 2008).

Obama started by giving talking points Fowler recognized as his typical speech about the working class, but then he switched gears:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” Obama said. “And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations” (Fowler).

It was the last part of that statement that rubbed Fowler the wrong way. Fowler was dismayed that Obama was confirming to wealthier Californians stereotypes of the working class and thought his comments showed bad judgment and elitist tendencies, she later said.

After the event, she was conflicted. She feared that reporting on the comments could lead to a media frenzy or be distorted and used against Obama. He had made other news during the speech about the kind of person he would pick for vice president and that he had been to Pakistan before during college. These comments Fowler posted the next day.

She thought about what to do about the comments for several days and eventually, after a conversation with project director Amanda Michel, decided it was part of her duty in covering the campaign to report on them. This was not the first time Fowler had been critical of the campaign or Obama, as her previous posts on OffTheBus had demonstrated (Rosen).

She wrote the post in a half an hour and unlike her previous posts about this fundraiser which had been in more of a hard news style, she wrote this one in a ruminating style that she would later be known by (Seelye). Fowler was concerned about contextualizing the quotes. She started the post on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania and the quotes appeared late in the story, not the way a traditional journalist would have written it, but a traditional journalist wouldn’t have gotten the story either, Rosen later wrote.

Four days later, her post “No Surprise that Hard Pressed Pennsylvanians Turn Bitter” appeared online. Fowler thought posting it on a Friday would mean less people would see it. This did not turn out to be the case.

The post drew 250,000 page views and 5,000 comments within 48 hours (Rosen). The story was picked up by AP, Reuters, and national newspapers and was the top story on Google News for a day (Rosen). The blogosphere also reacted.

The incident came to be known as “Bittergate.” Obama would soon have to justify his comments publically and Clinton responded to them, hoping they would help her in the polls against him in Pennsylvania a little over a week later. This tipped off a debate in the campaigns about the Second Amendment (Seelye).

Fowler said the Obama campaign never contested her right to report on what happened or its accuracy, though the New York Times reported that the person who sent her an invite called her after the incident and said fundraisers are always off the record. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said that while the event was closed to traditional media, it was not off the record. He said there’s an expectation now that even at private events everything will be recorded and posted (Garofoli).

Fowler was debated both as an Obama supporter and a journalist. Other supporters doubted her support for Obama, accused her of damaging his campaign and suggested she was actually a Clinton supporter (Seelye).

The heated question in journalistic circles became over whether citizen journalists have the same responsibilities as journalists or simply rights as citizens (Rosen).

Some, like Michael Tomasky at the Guardian, argued that citizen journalists ought to have a responsibility, same as journalists, to seek followup and clarification and that there should be some rules that need to be followed in reporting.

Others like Jeff Jarvis, blogger and associated professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism, suggested that citizens are less beholden than journalists and that that’s a good thing.

Marc Cooper, editorial director of OffTheBus, defended Fowler on his personal blog, highlighting that the conversation should have been directed at the political implications of what Obama said rather than attacks at the reporter, or blogger, who broke the story.

Clinton ended up beating Obama in the Pennsylvania primaries, but Obama went on to take the presidential nomination for the party and eventually the White House and Fowler continued to cover his trail.

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Works cited

Cooper, Marc. (2008, April 16). Closed to press — not off the record. MarcCooper.com. Retrieved Feb. 12, 2009, from http://marccooper.com/closed-to-press-not-off-the-record/

Fowler, M. (2008, April 11). Obama: No surprise that hard-pressed Pennsylvanians turn bitter. Huffington Post’s OfftheBus. Retrieved Feb. 12, 2009, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/obama-no-surprise-that-ha_b_96188.html

Garofoli, J. (2008, April 16). Blogger at fundraiser part of new journalism. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved Feb. 12, 2009, from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/16/MNJS106AG8.DTL&hw=mayhill&sn=001&sc=1000

Jarvis, J. (2008, April 17). Journalism as a control point. Buzz Machine. Retrieved Feb. 12, 2009, from http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/04/17/journalism-as-a-control-point/

Seelye, K. (2008, April 14). Blogger is surprised by uproar over Obama story, but not bitter. New York Times. Retrieved Feb. 12, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/us/politics/14web-seelye.html

Tomasky, M. (2008, April 15). Citizen-journalism’s rulebook. Guardian.co.uk: Comment is free. Retrieved Feb. 12, 2009, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/15/citizenjournalismsrulebook

The Rocky Mountain News began its coverage the night a SUV broadsided a Mazda pickup truck and sent it careening into a nearby Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop in Aurora, Colo., killing the two women in the pickup and a 3-year-old boy getting ice cream (Washington & Villa, 2008). The story in early September of the hit-and-run accident by a suspected illegal immigrant drew attention and interest from the community of the third largest city in Colorado (Temple, 2008). However, it was the coverage of 3-year-old Marten Kudlis’ funeral a week later that put the Rocky Mountain News itself into the story.

Reporter Berny Morson had been assigned to cover the funeral and had gained permission from the family to be in the chapel covering the event, following the Rocky Mountain News’ policy, publisher John Temple wrote in a later column. Though Marten’s parents requested that reporters not be allowed in the chapel during the service, family members had granted reporters permission to cover the event so a few were present, said Gerry Smith, the mortuary manager (Heussner, 2008).

Berny Morson's Twitter feed from the funeral

Instead of publishing a story about the memorial service after the fact, Morson used his cell phone to cover the funeral through real-time updates to Twitter, a micro-blogging service. Twitter allows users to publish 140-character messages, or tweets, from the web or a mobile device. News organizations have begun using Twitter as a platform for news updates and event coverage (Heussner, 2008).

Morson’s updates to his Twitter feed and to the Rocky Mountain News Web site included messages such as “people again are sobbing. rabbi again asks god to give marten everlasting life,” “rabbi recites 23rd psalm,” and “family members shovel earth onto grave” (Morson, 2008). An editor’s note was included with the feed specifying that the messages were live and unedited (Oliver, 2008).

Following this live Twitter coverage, those involved, fellow journalists and media critics reacted to the coverage. Smith described the Rocky Mountain News’ coverage as an invasion of privacy, while the rabbi officiating the funeral said he did not have a problem with the coverage, suggesting that it was a way of sharing information with a wider community interested in the event (Heussner, 2008). Mike McPhee, a reporter for the Denver Post who also covered the funeral, said journalists were told they could enter the chapel as long as they were not intrusive and refrained from using cameras (Heussner, 2008). Morson’s texting was obvious and distracting, McPhee said. Temple later wrote in response that the newspaper’s reporters typically sit at the back of the hall to not be disruptive in covering funeral services.

Media professionals and critics responded in blogs posts and forum comments such as those found in Poynter Institute’s E-media Tidbits and the Colorado Independent, questioning the news value and sensitivity of the coverage (Ferrier, 2008; Degette, 2008). ABC News reported that the incident blurred public and private lines, as well as brought up questions about the appropriate use of new technology. Samuel Freedman, a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, compared Morson’s use of Twitter to doing a television stand-up in the middle of the services (Heussner, 2008).

Initially, the Rocky Mountain News did not respond to interviews requested by several blogs and news organizations. The official response came two days later, when Temple responded to criticism by publishing a column on the subject of the coverage as well as commenting back on the Poynter’s blog. He wrote that the reporter did and does not make policy and coverage decisions. He suggested that the funeral was newsworthy because the story of the three deaths had drawn much attention and empathy by thousands of people in the community and that as a reader he was interested in hearing what happened during the funeral, how many people were there and how it was handled (Temple). The format of updates via Twitter presented an opportunity to help the community connect through live information since many people could not attend, Temple wrote.

Morson’s short lines sent through texting during the service also received criticism for being poorly constructed and cold in a sensitive situation (Temple). Temple responded to these criticisms by taking personal responsibility for the poor execution of the reporter’s work by saying that proper training in how to use the new technology and format was not provided. Newspapers need to learn how to use the new tools at their disposals and will make mistakes, Temple wrote, but they still need to try.

Blogs later reported that plans to Twitter a second funeral, one for a woman who died in the same accident, were canceled (Roberts, 2008).

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Works cited

-Degette, C. (2008, Sept. 10). RMN ‘Tweets’ the funeral of 3-year-old boy killed in ice cream shop. Colorado Independent. Retrieved Feb. 4, 2009, from http://coloradoindependent.com/7717/rmn-tweets-the-funeral-of-3-year-old-boy

-Ferrier, M. (2008, Sept. 11). Rocky Mountain News: Tasteless tweets. Poynter Online – E-Media Tidbits. Retrieved Feb. 3, 2009, from http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=150410

-Heussner, K. (12 Sept. 2008). Paper’s decision to Twitter 3-year-old’s funeral sparks outrage. ABC News. Retrieved Feb. 4, 2009, from http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=5790930&page=1

-Oliver, L. (2008, Sept. 11). When Twitter goes bad: newspaper tweets a funeral. Journalism.co.uk. Retrieved Feb. 4, 2009, from http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/tag/marten-kudlis/

-Morson, B. (10 Sept. 2008). RMN_Berny. Retrieved Feb. 3, 2009, from
-Roberts, M. (2008, Sept. 24). Last rites on the Rocky Mountain News’s Twittering. Denver Westword News. Retrieved Feb. 4, 2009, from http://www.westword.com/2008-09-25/news/last-rites-on-the-rocky-mountain-news-s-twittering/

-Temple, J. (2008, Sept. 12). TEMPLE: New tech raises taste questions. Rocky Mountain News. Retrieved Feb. 3, 2009, from http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/sep/12/temple-new-tech-raises-taste-questions/

-Washington, A. & Villa, J. (2008, Sept. 5). Family grapples with 3-year-old’s death. Rocky Mountain News. Retrieved Feb. 4, 2009, from http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/sep/05/car-crashes-baskin-robbins-kills-child/