To Blog Or Not To Blog

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 24, 2006 8:09 AM

Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times hasn't exactly been pulling his punches.

He has ripped "the right-wing noise machine Hugh Hewitt," calling the radio host a "close-minded nincompoop" who parades his "ignorance" and shows "his sedulous devotion, like a sucking remora fish, to the imploding George W. Bush."

He has assailed "the reactionary Kate O'Beirne" for suffering a "loss of bladder control" in her televised comments.

He has slammed Los Angeles writer Cathy Seipp as "one of those people whose desire to Tell it Like it Is tends to be hampered by lack of information."

Hiltzik has done all this not in his column but on his company-approved blog, a sideline that has landed him in trouble and raised questions about how far news organizations should go in allowing employees to swing away in the freewheeling, name-calling, grudge-settling blogosphere.

The Times suspended Hiltzik's blog on the paper's Web site last week after he admitted using one or more pseudonyms, in violation of the company's policy, to post derogatory comments on his and other people's blogs. The anonymous blasts by "Mikekoshi" were usually aimed at the same people he peppers on his Golden State blog, which is far more personal and inflammatory than his newspaper column on financial issues.

Hiltzik also got into trouble in 1993, when the Times recalled him from the paper's Moscow bureau after he was caught hacking into colleagues' e-mail. He was exposed through an internal sting operation when he asked about phony messages that had been sent to other staffers in the bureau.

"His answer was that he was nosy and curious," says Carey Goldberg, a former colleague in the Moscow bureau who now works for the Boston Globe. "We were extremely upset. It was an incredible invasion of privacy. There were a lot of personal e-mails in there."

Seipp says Hiltzik has apparently been taking potshots at her because she criticized him at the time of the 13-year-old incident. While Hiltzik is "a very smart reporter and writer," Seipp says, his behavior "suggests that this guy has a history of snooping around and is dishonest and doing things he shouldn't be doing. It's also self-destructive."

It's unclear why Hiltzik would take such a risk, but not everyone is critical. Claude Brodesser, who writes a Los Angeles column for the Web site Media Bistro, writes that anonymous posting is part of the Internet culture and that even reporters should enjoy that freedom. "Hiltzik might have cloaked his identity -- something seemingly at variance with the Times' policies -- but what he did was hardly lying or, for that matter, extortion," Brodesser says.

What exactly are the rules for print or television journalists blogging on company sites? Reporters are usually told not to take political stands or say anything they wouldn't say in print or on the air. But blogs by their nature are more personal, attitude-filled, sharp-edged or sarcastic--often dashed off within minutes--and that is the essence of their appeal. It can also be dangerous territory.

Neither Hiltzik nor Times editors would comment while his blog practices are under investigation. But the Times is hardly the only news outlet grappling with the question of standards.

ABC News correspondent Jake Tapper, who was writing the blog Down and Dirty for the network's Web site, told readers this month that the column would begoing on hiatus "for a host of complicated reasons," which sounds like code for disagreements over content.

"Complicated reasons????" one reader wrote. "That can only mean one thing -- it wasn't your decision."

Wrote another: "Hey, ABC, can't you see that, in Tapper, you have a resource that elicits emotion from his dedicated readers? Give him some leash and let the big dog eat!"

Says ABC spokeswoman Emily Lenzner: "Some news organizations have been loose with their blogs and others are more conservative. We put our blogs through a more rigorous editorial process, which is something this blogger chose to take a break from."

Washingtonpost.com, which carries blogs by more than two dozen of the newspaper's staffers (including this columnist), caused an online uproar last month by hiring 24-year-old Ben Domenech as a conservative blogger. Domenech resigned under pressure after three days when liberal bloggers unearthed ample evidence that in the past he had lifted material from other writers without attribution.

Other organizations have had no friction. The Philadelphia Inquirer and Chicago Tribune are among the newspapers that carry blogs by some of their top reporters. NBC carries regular blogs by anchor Brian Williams and Baghdad correspondent Richard Engel. Time recently signed a deal to begin carrying the blog by Andrew Sullivan, one of the edgiest pioneers of the genre.

"We clearly bill it as Andrew's opinions and ideas, and they go places that the print version of Time Magazine might not go," says Stephen Koepp, Time's deputy managing editor. "People expect a more unvarnished opinion. . . . He uses his own good judgment about what's appropriate."

Mark Jurkowitz, the Boston Phoenix's media writer, says his blog isn't edited by the bosses but says he finds himself toning things down out of "self-censorship."

For news organizations, Jurkowitz says, "there is a rush to embrace blogs without a lot of hard thought about the rules of the game for people whose day jobs are working for these publications. When you're talking about disguising your identity, deception, you're in a real bad area."

Welcome Wagon

Katie Couric did more than drop by CBS News last week.

While wrapping up her final weeks at NBC's "Today," Couric spent hours at the rival network Wednesday, addressing 200 people in the newsroom and then lingering to work the room. She talked about how excited she was to be taking the evening news job at CBS and how she wanted to try new things and build on the changes made by the outgoing anchor, Bob Schieffer.

If the goal was to charm those who might be skeptical of her taking the anchor job, Couric apparently succeeded.

CBS News President Sean McManus told the staff he was struck by "her respect for good journalism, solid reporting and compelling storytelling." Schieffer says he found her to be "a wonderful person and wonderful mother who will be nurturing of our correspondents."

When the love-fest ended, Couric went across the street to the offices of "60 Minutes," where she will be a contributor. Couric met with Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Ed Bradley, Lesley Stahl, Dan Rather and many others, including the office receptionist. "I think we wore her out," executive producer Jeff Fager says. "But she's so friendly, she had to meet everyone."

Couric did not encounter Andy Rooney, who badmouthed her hiring. But the "60 Minutes" curmudgeon recently told TV Week that he wished he had been "a little softer" in criticizing the Couric move and that "my objection is probably an old fogy's objection."

Page Six's Deep-Six

The New York Post has dropped Jared Paul Stern, the Page Six gossip contributor caught in a videotaped sting.

A Post spokesman did not deny a report in New York's Daily News that the Post has let go Stern and three other part-timers at Page Six. The move comes during an FBI probe into whether Stern violated the law by asking California billionaire Ron Burkle for $220,000 following Burkle's complaints about his rough treatment by Page Six.

Stern's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, says that "we will be pursuing all of our legal options." Stern, who says he sought the money for media consulting and an investment in his clothing line, calls the News's reporting on him "total BS," saying: "The News are the ones who will have to cut back on staff -- they'll need the money to pay out all the libel claims."

Time Heals All Wounds

Three years ago, writer Gregg Easterbrook was thrown for a loss when ESPN's Web site dropped his weekly football column.

The problem was a New Republic blog posting in which he suggested that the Jewishness of Hollywood executives -- he mentioned Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein, then both with Disney -- might be a factor in their filmmaking. Easterbrook apologized, but ESPN, which is owned by Disney, dumped him anyway.

Now the bad feelings have apparently faded. ESPN is announcing tomorrow that Easterbrook, who had been writing for the National Football League's Web site, has signed a new contract.

"They were friendly to me in private, even while they were firing me," Easterbrook says. "I made a mistake. They made a mistake. The world would be a better place if people could just forgive each other's mistakes."

While the Brookings fellow usually writes on weightier matters for such magazines as the Atlantic, he says, "this is the part of my writing my kids read."

Meanwhile, BuzzMachine man Jeff Jarvis doesn't approve of Michael Hiltzik's blog conduct:

"The bottom line: Journalists who are afraid to speak as themselves in public. They thus separate themselves from the public they serve: scared of us or feeling superior to us, but not among us in any case. That is a mistake and an insult . . .

"Here's Hiltzik choosing to enter into a conversation with the public -- the act of blogging is precisely that -- but then pulling back to refuse to interact with honestly, at eye level. It's an act of lying and of cowardice. He complains that others online hide behind anonymity. And I agree with him in my general mistrust of the anonymous. But he doesn't get to hide behind that. He has a byline and a podium and he can't dash in and out of the closet, try as he might."

John Hinderaker applauds the CIA's firing of Mary McCarthy, accused of being of one of Dana Priest's sources:

"My only regret is that the investigations didn't start sooner. Democrats in the CIA have been conducting a leak war against the Bush administration for at least the past three years. Perhaps if the law had been enforced more vigorously long ago, the later leaks, which were even more damaging to national security, might not have occurred."

Well, McCarthy gave $2,000 to John Kerry, but how does Hinderaker know the other leakers are Democrats? Could there be such a thing as a nonpartisan whistleblower? And wasn't Scooter Libby--a certified Republican--indicted in a leak case as well?

The NYT and TheNYTandWP have McCarthy profiles.

But on National Review's The Corner , Andy McCarthy says:

"There is no mention by the Post -- none -- that Mary McCarthy is a big Kerry campaign and Democratic Party contributor.

"How can the WPost justify reporting one friend's mere impression that McCarthy is not biased and that it is very difficult even for those who know her well to understand why she would leak sensitive information, and yet not report the objective fact that -- after a meteoric professional rise in intelligence circles during a Democratic administration -- McCarthy, while a government official on a government salary, gave at least $7,700 of her own money in a single year to Democratic political campaigns?"

I would agree. Absolutely relevant information.

Ron Burkle, the guy who accused former Page Sixer Jared Stern of shaking him down, makes lots of money by being a Friend of Bill --and so does Bill.

Brad Blog is ecstatic over the latest "New Low for Bush" survey:

"How will the poor Fox 'News' Bush dead-enders cover for their man now that their own poll is out showing Bush at all-time lows with just a 33% approval rating. That number includes a full 20% drop in Republican support from one year ago!

"Just over a month ago, when CBS released their poll pegging Bush Approval at 34% the Fox Wingnuts bent over backwards to dismiss the poll as untrustworthy: 'This is not representative of the -- of the population of the country in any way, shape, manner, or form. Nor is the fact that Bush has 34 percent . . . You just know that's not possible. It simply isn't possible,' Rush Limbaugh said on February 28th, when the poll was released.

"Brit Hume on Special Report said, '[T]here's good reason to be skeptical of this CBS poll. It's wildly oversampled Democrats.' Sean Hannity spun with, 'The first thing we find out that nearly two to one they polled Democrats.' And John Gibson joined the dead-enders-in-denial with, 'Of course, it's weighted with more Democrats, so you've got to take that into account.' "

Could liberals have infiltrated the Fox polling operation?

Should the post-McClellan White House continue briefings at all? New York Times reporter David Sanger says maybe not:

"After nearly seven years of covering the White House, stretched over two administrations, four press secretaries, endless hours tinkering with the fractured hinge supporting the New York Times seat in the second row and hundreds of questions that have resulted in artful and artless evasive answers, I have come to a few conclusions.

"One is that the press secretary is not likely to return as a major force on the White House stage anytime soon. The second is that the daily briefings now have less to do with covering the White House than ever, and their value is diminishing every year. At some point between Monica and the missing W.M.D., the sparring came to obscure the imparting of information about how and why decisions were made . . .

"But the reality is that the briefings have strikingly little to do with how correspondents cover the White House. In a place this buttoned up, reporting happens from the outside in. The first glimmerings of what is happening come from those whose message the White House cannot control easily: members of Congress who have come in for arm-twisting, former White House staff members and advisers, and diplomats, foreign ministers and world leaders who leave the place confused or angry (see: China). The briefing is useful chiefly for contrasting what a reporter is hearing with the official version of events, or probing for brittleness or circular logic in the answers."

The WSJ's Dan Henninger is appalled by the blogosphere's tone:

"On the Huffington Post, there were more than 600 'comments' on Karl Rove and the White House staff shake-up. 'Demoted my --- the snake is still in the grass.' 'He should be demoted to Leavenworth.' 'Rove is Bush's Brain, and without him, our Decider-in-Chief wouldn't know how to wipe his own ----.'

"From a primary post on the same subject on the Daily Kos, widely regarded as one of the most influential blogging sites in Democratic politics now: 'I don't give a ----. Karl Rove belongs in shackles.' 'A group of village whores have taken a day off to do laundry.'

"Intense language like this used to be confined to construction sites and corner bars. Now it is normal discourse on Web sites, the most popular forums for political discussion."

Gee, I wonder why Henninger cited only liberal blogs. You know how long it would take me to find similar language on right-wing blogs? About as long as it takes to click on Google.

Is the New York Times being kicked around . . . too much? Public Eye's Brian Montopoli makes the case:

"There's no doubt that the Times remains an enormously important newspaper, in spite of the criticisms and crises it has had to weather in recent years. It helps set the agenda for newspapers around the country, radio and cable talking heads, and television news outlets both local and national, and it has a reach far beyond its subscribers. But one has to wonder if the scrutiny paid to the Times outweighs its influence. There's only so much scrutiny to go around, after all. And even if you think the Times deserves the close inspection it receives -- you might recall that the New Republic just gave us a 4,000 word cover on the 'Thursday Styles' section -- it's not like this Times obsessing takes place in a vacuum.

"While media critics pore over the paper of record, vast swathes of the media universe go virtually ignored. Consider local television news, that repository of 'Your Carpet Will Kill You' stories, inaccurate reporting, and if-it-bleeds-it-leadsism . . . Sometimes, a media critic will turn out a nice critique of television news, but such efforts are few and far between. One might point out that local news is, well, local -- it doesn't have the reach of the Times, and thus isn't going to get much attention. But many of the problems with local news are national in scope, and certainly worthy of attention, particularly in light of the fact that far more Americans get their news from their local newscasts than they do from the Times or its almost-as-obsessed-over sister, The Washington Post."