The traditional media types wonder why the public no longer considers them as infallible sources of information. They wonder why a large group of the public actually views them with disdain as arrogant and pompous. Building up credibility takes consistency and staying honest in communication, destroying your credibility takes very little time if you chuck those things out of convenience. The fact the Politico team doesn’t get this and actually prefers defending the use of “Mary” to disagree with one of their critics is a perfect example of the current disconnect between the public and the rapidly shrinking traditional media.

there’s also this thing called politics. and the fourth estate has long proved that it’s far more aligned with the ethics of politicians than with their own profession, at least as long as it’s convenient.

you’re pissing in the wind, jarvis, because it’s going to take a lot more than your own word to prove to me that your ethics are in order. guilty by association–work in the sewer, smell like ____. go ahead. insert your own words. you guys do it all the time.

Mark, first, I don’t do it for the money. I have given an open accounting of my blog’s revenue (http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/04/14/guardian-the-value-of-this-blog/) and the ad money is minimal.

I do it to explore ideas.

To your second point about the quality of comments: I do firmly believe — no, I know from long experience in many formats — that nasty anonymous comments drive audience away. So I disagree with your premise there.

I leave this choice to individuals and don’t impose, partly because I can’t and partly because there are cases when anonymity has a place, as I’ve also long said.

Once more, I’m just telling my commenters what I think of their comments if they don’t use their names.

I find it convenient that some of them use consistent handles because I often skip reading their comments entirely. I won’t say who because you and I will make different judgments about that. That’s your freedom, as it was to put a name on your comments (which I thank you and I take you at your word that you are who you say you are).

Now pardon me if I don’t respond to each of your comments. I’m now behind with work. That’s the other view I have of comments: I’ve had my say and I open the space where others can have theirs. They don’t need me to do that — they can have their own blogs in 2 minutes — but I welcome their response and, in most discussions, I find the discussion very helpful and quite worth the occassional inconvenience of skipping over a troll’s droppings.

I appreciate your response. Alas, you declined to address the central issue of my position.

Money.

In honor of Warner Wolf, let’s roll the Internet Thread Tape with what I wrote:

“Let’s be quite sincere, shall we. You want traffic, Mr. Jarvis. No traffic. No ad sales. No ad sales. No blog site. How does one create traffic? By quality of posts? Perhaps. By controversial quality of posts? More likely.

“How does one stimulate or stoke the controversial quality of one’s posts? By allowing response to said posts and the more racy the response, the more apt others are to respond to it. Now, to achieve the controversial response, can the blog site boss demand the full and open identity of its poster? Perhaps, but one’s traffic, resulting ad sales, and eventual revenue will decline. This poster would rather try to win the lottery than demand the honest identification of the blogger as a means by which to generate end revenue.

“Instead, the poster is more apt to (wink, wink) issue a demand for open, honest discussion, but allow the identity of he/she/it who comments to remain rather anonymous. The human being is more apt to respond in blunt or even rude fashion when knowing that his/her name will not be used. (See just about any/every comment posted by a blogger at National Review Online for confirmation of this fact.) The respondent remains anonymous, the comment is rather salty in nature, the replies to said comment flow like the grizzly bear to honey, and the blog boss sees corresponding traffic, ad revenues, and profits increase.”

You neglected to address the topic of money, which is created via advertising revenues on this site. That, in turn, stems forth from the number of hits, as it were, to this site. Which, I have maintained, is the result of the controversial quality of the comments made by respondents on threads such as this. Such controversy, further, is bolstered by the commenter’s ability to remain anonymous if he/she so chooses.

Instead, you confined your response to, let’s roll the Internet Thread Tape:

“I have told my commenters since starting comments that I will give less credence, attention, respect, time, energy, and eyestrain to what they say if they do not have the balls to stand up behind their words with their names.”

This writer respectfully submits that whether you give credence, attention, respect, time, energy, and eyestrain to the comments has no correlation to the quality, controversial or otherwise, of blog responses and, further, to the status, anonymous or not, of the various posters. Whether you like, dislike, or acknowledge a comment has no impact whatsoever on that comment’s very status on this, or any other, website. The hit has been registered. The number goes toward your total count. The count determines your ability to obtain advertising and, hence, profit.

Above, you received a thread response from The Times Union of Albany, N.Y. Let’s examine the Letters to the Editor section of that publication or, for that matter, the same aspects of The New York Times and The Washington Times. On all three publications, one will find a litany of letters from respondents who identify themselves as doctors of medicine, business executives, representatives of non-profit organizations, and religious leaders. One respectfully suggests that each of these individuals possesses the income stream necessary to write a letter for publication without worry of impact on one’s financial status. Such is not often the case for many in the employ of another or of an organization that seeks to minimize any and all controversy. Surely you’ve either read or heard about employers now using various software systems to determine if job candidates have posted on various websites and what, in fact, said candidates have posted? This seems to be the latest in all the Human Resources rages, as it were.

Further, we are all aware that Conservatives and Democrats send chain-type letters to various mid-market daily publications. The letters, often drafted by a staffer at some D.C.-based chop house, advocate a particular policy position or the election/re-election of a political candidate. Sometimes, daily publications catch such letters before they make it to print; oftentimes, the newspaper in question lacks the staff or software system to identify such letters and publishes them under the false guise of the independent opinion of a local and/or regional resident and reader.

Let us suppose that The Times Union of Albany, The New York Times, and The Washington Times decided to post letters to the editor from anonymous scribes. Is it not logical to ascertain that the number of letters, and the vitriolic and/or controversial quality of such, would increase and markedly so? Would not these more volatile letters perhaps generate a certain “buzz” among a publication’s readership and possibly lead to great sales and/or circulation?

Yet these publications, bound by a code of professional conduct, have so far refused to allow letters to the editor without name and address. Many such publications often require the telephone number of the writer and, prior to publication, contact said writer to determine that he/she has, in fact, written the item in question. Most papers typically reserve the authority to edit such letters for space and content.

You, like most blog bosses, have implemented no such professional standards on your website. Again, let’s roll the Internet Thread Tape:

“It’s not my job to confirm their identities. I leave that to them and those who do identify themselves, I will generally take them at their word unless there is a reason to doubt it.”

That, of course, is your right. One could clearly maintain that it would be logistically impossible for an individual blogger to check the authenticity of each and every respondent before posting his/her comment on a thread.

However, for one who often questions the veracity and ethics of the media, should you not consider your own standards, and clearly identify the reasons therefore, as part of your own personal vetting process?

Something to think about.

I have told my commenters since starting comments that I will give less credence, attention, respect, time, energy, and eyestrain to what they say if they do not have the balls to stand up behind their words with their names. So whether they agree with me or disagree with me, that doesn’t matter. That’s my standard, always has been. It’s not my job to confirm their identities. I leave that to them and those who do identify themselves, I will generally take them at their word unless there is a reason to doubt it. Is this a standard that will be met universally or even most of the time? Sadly not. But that’s where I stand with every anonymous and pseudonymous commenter. That is what I call (drum roll, please), the ethic of identity.

But that aside, I’m not willing to entirely agree with your idea that “journalists should never post anonymously.” I don’t know who Mary is, but what if she was a copy-editor (non reporter) at Politico who could lose her job for “speaking for the organization?” I’ve definately had friends who worked for major organizations (Microsoft) who wanted to post on blogs about some people’s anti-(their company). But becuase they aren’t “official company spokespersons” they can’t be posting as John Doe in Microsoft Tech Support.

I think sometimes employees at newspapers and other media organizations want to jump into the fray and defend their colleague/company’s honor but doing so in their own name will get them into trouble. I agree that as a rule of rule, it would be good to say at least “Jane Doe from Politico” instead of “Mary from nowhere.”

There is a difference between sockpuppetry and fear that your company will fire you for speaking in their name (even to defend it…).

“not necessarily good for the ole reputation”

That is the interesting point, I think. Going back to the original inspiration for this thread. Unlike others, I do not think it harmed Bill Clinton’s “ole reputation” when he was quoted by Off The Bus as dismissing Vanity Fair’s so-called hatchet job with such offhand insults — “dishonest report”…”real slimy guy” — even as he admitted that he had not read the article whose author he was badmouthing.

Everyone understood that this was a flippant, uninformed, emotional response by the former President — not a formal piece of considered media criticism.

Your example, Alex, that people talk in a different tone of voice in articles and in blog comments and at panels and in discussion is, I think, well understood. I have faith that people understand the context, rigor, tone of voice, professionalism — or lack thereof — of our utterances and I do not think it harms the “ole reputation” to be identified as one speaks in an array of registers.

Both the name and email to which it’s attached are quite legitimate. A pity, truly it is, that you cannot proclaim the same about each and everyone who has posted on this thread.

Hmm, let’s see. Batting leadoff is none other than John Doe. Probably using his/her mother’s maiden name. Continuing further we have:

Liz (Taylor perhaps?)

Tom (Tomorrow?)

works in media (Some sort of New Age name from the parents after a bad LSD trip?)

Liz (Again? Maybe it’s her Conrad “Nicky” Hilton phase?)

Tobe (Maybe related to the Lakers shooting guard with the interesting trips to Colorado in his past?)

Anonymousposter (A CIA agent in the Global War on Terrorism no doubt?)

darleene (With two Es. Just to stand out from the crowd. Or atop an eye chart.)

That’s seven posters (eight total posts out of 42) that you have allowed to respond in complete anonymity. Why have you not held your respondents to the same level of open identification that you demand of Politico?

Further, George Pullman, Andy Freeman, Rick Anderson, Bob Higgins (three times), a Jeff Jarvis with Claude Rains tendencies, and this scribe do not have personal blogs to which we have attached our names. That’s six posters (eight total posts out of 42) for which you cannot confirm with absolute certainty the identity of the poster, including, I must add, the writer of this very point. Why have you failed to establish a rigid means of posting on this website that demands the full and complete identity of each respondent?

Remove your six responses (one assumes that you are, in fact, you and does so by acknowledging that you could have directed some intern or low-paid lackey to respond using your name and blog address), and only 20 of the 42 posts on this thread are attached to bloggers who have used their names and blog site links. That’s not even 50 percent (actually, 47.6 percent for those of you with a calculator on your computer).

But can you really confirm with complete and total validity that each of these bloggers is actually who he/she claims to be? Are you absolutely sure that none of these bloggers has chosen to use some sort of Internet pen name, some type of Mark Twain nee Samuel Langhorne Clemens, albeit far the pale in terms of quality, of the 21st century?

Let’s be quite sincere, shall we. You want traffic, Mr. Jarvis. No traffic. No ad sales. No ad sales. No blog site. How does one create traffic? By quality of posts? Perhaps. By controversial quality of posts? More likely.

How does one stimulate or stoke the controversial quality of one’s posts? By allowing response to said posts and the more racy the response, the more apt others are to respond to it. Now, to achieve the controversial response, can the blog site boss demand the full and open identity of its poster? Perhaps, but one’s traffic, resulting ad sales, and eventual revenue will decline. This poster would rather try to win the lottery than demand the honest identification of the blogger as a means by which to generate end revenue.

Instead, the poster is more apt to (wink, wink) issue a demand for open, honest discussion, but allow the identity of he/she/it who comments to remain rather anonymous. The human being is more apt to respond in blunt or even rude fashion when knowing that his/her name will not be used. (See just about any/every comment posted by a blogger at National Review Online for confirmation of this fact.) The respondent remains anonymous, the comment is rather salty in nature, the replies to said comment flow like the grizzly bear to honey, and the blog boss sees corresponding traffic, ad revenues, and profits increase.

Feel free, of course, to correct on each and every point. I look forward to your reply.

P.S. I don’t work for Politico. Have no allegiance to Politico. Care not one whit about Politico. Just like calling a spade a spade and cutting through the BS.

I think you are creating a problem where none exists. Obviously it is possible for “Normal Alex” to be anonymous when posting a casual “full of shit” insult that would not pass muster according to the professional norms of “Reporter Alex.” But just as easily, “Normal Alex” could identify herself by name, adding a disclaimer that spells out the disparity in levels of gravity, such as “in my personal opinion” or “not speaking in my professional capacity” or “as an offhand unverified impression.” Readers of the post would thus have a more rounded view of Alex the person in both of her capacities.

i want to be able to say things in blog comments (if i happen to believe them, which i’m not saying right now that i do — necessarily) like “the philadelphia department of recreation is full of shit,” and not have that statement subjected to fact checks. though it is amusing, i don’t think parsing through this with silly personal attacks/defenses is particularly helpful. i’d love it if this topic were discussed with regard to real issues.