Actually, I don’t think that’s true. As Howard Kurtz detailed this morning, Hiltzik said equally nasty things about his competition under his own name, all the time.

I am on record (repeatedly) as saying he should not be fired or disciplined for this any further. Suspension of the blog and humiliation are enough.

However, I understand that, on at least one occasion, Mr. Hiltzik posted to a conservative-leaning blog (Patterico’s, IIRC) a comment (as mikekoshi)attacking Sen. Specter in a manner that parroted his own criticisms of Specter. He then shortly thereafter reported in his own blog of how Sen. Specter was taking heat “even on a conservative blog.” This was (as I understand it) in no small part to add credence to his earlier attacks on Specter in his own blog.

Here’s the $64,000 question - how is that any different from a reporter inventing a source for a story? Mr. Hiltzik “created” his own story by posting as mikekoshi, and I don’t think it’s too much to presume that he did so as mikekoshi, at least in part, so that he could turn around and report that there was some kind of groundswell from conservatives against Specter. Needless to say, I doubt it would have had much punch to have said “As I was ripping on Specter here, I was also ripping on Specter in a conservative blog. Doesn’t that add weight to my position?”

For attempting to defraud his readers by manufacturing a “groundswell” in favor of a position he stated, by repeating his accusations in another’s blog, then reporting his own acts as the acts of others, he deserves no better than to have his journalistic epaulets ripped from him, and be expelled from the journalistic service. To do less now would be one more blackeye on a profession that is already suffering from a deficit of eyes to blacken. IMO. FWIW.

There isn’t really a big difference.

It’s all about integrity and ethics. He’s a sneaky liar that got outed. Period. More than the reprehensible actions of journalists like him, it’s the defense of this behavior by peers and publishers that has brought the MSM to where it stands today, distrusted and disliked. Hopefully, more broke with time too.

Not firing him on the spot is a dumb move by the Times and will cost them. Can they really afford to preserve his by-line and be admired for that by the public? I think not.

I certainly would have been impressed and would have applauded the effort. I think most in the blogosphere would have reacted that way, too, and particularly so if the effort was a serious one.

And therein lies the difference in having three Hiltziks in the blogosphere and how much value he puts in conceit.

This isn’t complicated, or hairsplitting. Hiltzik used false id’s to create a false image of a community of people who agreed with him and praised him when it was a community of just one person. He used them to give compliments to himself and to pretend that other people were insulting his opponents when it was actually him. This is simple. It’s dishonest and cowardly.

The difference is actually tremendous; and it’s pretty sad if you don’t see the difference.

We’re not talking about someone who chooses a single pseudonym and uses it consistently and exclusively. That’s just someone who chooses to be anonymous, and we can assign less credibility to what we read from that person as a result.

What we are talking about here is someone who chose to pose as multiple people on the Web, under his own name and more than one pseudonym. By his writings he deliberately led people to believe that each of these characters was distinct; e.g., that “mikekoshi” was not, in fact, “Michael Hiltzik.” He then did this to offer his “real” identity support from those who would challenge or attack him.

Imagine if he wrote a post on his Golden State blog, and then “mikekoshi” came up and said “this is a fantastic article.” Obviously he tried to be slightly more clever than that, but that’s the spirit of the distinction we are making.

There is also the little matter that this practice violated his employer’s code of ethics.

I suppose the critical difference is that Franklin was trying to spur debate, not squelch it, which is what Hiltzik appears to have been attempting.

Mike Royko in the old Chicago Daily News days used pseudonyms and fake quotes in his column (Good Jane, Bad Jane (Byrne) and Slats Grobnick (sp?). But that was very clearly satire.

What the hell is the difference? Talk about hair-splitting.

Kevin Peters

I use psueds for two reasons primarily. For years I posted using my own name and rigorously never used a psued. One day I was called into my manager’s office and given a written warning over something which I had written under my own name (on my personal time). Someone had reported me to the management and they disagreed. I would be fired if I continued.

I began using a psued that night and have never stopped. I now use my proper name only to express views I think uncontroversial. I also shook the dust of that place from my feet as soon after as I could manage. Actually both the employer and the BB where the squealer resided. It’s a nasty judgemental world out there so the #1 reason to use a pseud is self-protection.

I also use pseuds to express a viewpoint, particularly when I need to pile sarcasm onto a worthy head. In this case the psuedname is carefully chosen and the medium is indeed part of the message in those situations. This kind of pseud has a half-life of maybe 3 comments and a day or two at most.

If I were to invent two other online persona - “Armed Moderate” and “Armed Thinker” and use them to extol my - and each other’s - positions while bashing people who agreed with me, I’d be defrauding the people I’m in dialog with.

Here’s part of what I wrote about this:

If Hiltzik were - as a hypothetical - in a recovery program, and someone who posted on a recovery website or discussion board under a pseudonym, to protect his privacy in “the world”, to have connected the pseudonym and the person would be an act of gratuitous cruelty.

But there would be no intersection between his life in the world - as a reporter, columnist of blogger - and the personal world in which he was talking about issues related to his recovery (or sexuality or diet or whatever).

Patterico and I both started out blogging under pseudonyms that we defended - there were very few people who knew that Armed Liberal was Marc Danziger, and at my first blogger events, TG awkwardly introduced herself as “Mrs. Armed Liberal”. We both did it for what we felt were valid reasons, and have both since come out.

But no one has ever wonder what I wrote or where I stand.

Everything I’ve written as a blogger is out there, and there’s a very simple and transparent ability of any reader to look at my words and, if they so choose, form an impression about who I am and what I think.

When Hiltzik (or John Lott, who did the same thing) broke that rule, what he did was to poison the dialog by creating a situation where readers can’t trust writers.

Marc Danziger

The guy was getting hammered by critical comments on his own L.A. Times sponsored blog. His normal response to disagreement was to pompously decree that all who differed with him were idiots.

He seemingly was trying to build traffic by starting flame wars with established bloggers like Hugh Hewitt, Mickey Kaus and others. For the most part, the other bloggers refused to take the bait.

No matter what he tried, the comment traffic on his blog was normally extremely sparse, with the exception of occasional waves of comments defending a blogger he had recently attacked.

Outnumbered, maybe fifty to one, he invented imaginary friendly commenters to come to his rescue against his hordes of critics.

The L.A. Times Golden State blog could have worked, if they had staffed the position with someone who could take the heat.