Comments on: Public officials blogging, do you quote?

by: Jim

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:52:14 +0000

This is not close. As long as you are sure this is the public official’s blog (and he/she confirm that) anything on there is fair game.
I would suggest, in the outside chance the remark was controversial or inflammatory, that the reporter would make a copy of the original post.
If the comment gets the politician in trouble, I would want the evidence of the original before they had a chance to delete or correct it.
That is my biggest bone to pick with online new sites is that they often simply correct mistakes without acknowledging their existence.
The standard for correcting mistakes should be the same online as it is for print.
For what it’s worth.

Jim

by: Mindy McAdams

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:22:11 +0000

I think maybe the hesitation stems from the “netiquette” expected in private discussion forums. Back in the pre-Web days, The WeLL was a very, very active community that you had to pay to join, and only members could see the discussions. Some of the discussions were even double-walled — you had to be vetted before you could even be in the forum (most discussions were open to anyone who was a member).

The WeLL had a policy of “You own your own words.” All Wellbeings knew that meant it was NOT fair game to copy someone’s words from inside The WeLL and post them outside. Of course, some people did just that. And sometimes a brash journalist would pay to join, run around all the forums, copy lots of stuff and quote it without asking permission — and REALLY make everyone else boiling mad! (This also had the effect of making journalists in general seem like jerks.)

A lot of online discussions today are wide open — rather different from The WeLL.

Most blogs are wide open, so I do not think the same considerations apply to anyone who blogs.

And as John Robinson said, a public official is always on the record unless s/he explicitly says otherwise — in advance.

In addition to checking that the person really did write the blog, I would also clearly identify the quoted matter as having come from the blog.

by: Howard Owens

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:03:31 +0000

I’m a little baffled — why wouldn’t it be “fair game”? (Whatever that means.)

The term “fair game” implies some sense of gotcha journalism, like “should reporters troll elected officials blogs for stupid quotes.”

However, if you accept the notion that journalism is a conversation, and a blog is just a conversational tool, then a reporter should be engaging in that conversation — and feel free to quote and comment on that elected officials blog, either in standard reporting stories or in his or her own blog.

I fail to see why anyone in your newsroom would question whether what an elected official says in his blog should in any way be ignored or dismissed and not be eligible for vigilent coverage.

by: Ryan Sholin

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:24:02 +0000

It’s definitely fair game, but…

…I’d always try to call the blogger to confirm, let them elaborate, ask a couple more questions, etc.

Then again, if you have a blog for your beat, nothing would be more appropriate than to quote from the blog.

(Of course, I say this as someone whose blog has been quoted without much context more than once. Why didn’t the reporter at least bother to shoot me an e-mail to ask me to elaborate? They would have a better quote in the end if they did.)

by: John Robinson

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:10:16 +0000

We have elected officials who blog and, of course, what they write is fair game. It often takes the tone of press releases, but often what they write is a good source of information. We had one city council member who delved into controversial stuff and had back-and-forth conversations on her blog with readers about contentious issues. (She was defeated in the November election, less for her blog, I think, but maybe more for her transparency.)