Bloggasm

Andrew Sullivan, who writes for “the most popular one-man political blog site in the world” has written a piece for The Atlantic with the excruciating title of “Why I Blog.”

In it, he spends a considerable amount of space noting the immediacy of the medium, using this as a scapegoat for the slapdash, thinly-sourced material that can be found on most blogs:

No columnist or reporter or novelist will have his minute shifts or constant small contradictions exposed as mercilessly as a blogger’s are. A columnist can ignore or duck a subject less noticeably than a blogger committing thoughts to pixels several times a day. A reporter can wait—must wait—until every source has confirmed. A novelist can spend months or years before committing words to the world. For bloggers, the deadline is always now. Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.

Sullivan is commenting on the Instapundit style of blogging, one he engages in regularly. Though one can rise to popularity with this kind of blogging through luck (Instapundit, Atrios) or because of prior celebrity status (Sullivan), the rest of us who are scrambling for readers rarely gain traction without more thoughtful original content. And there are a few of us (cough cough) who take the time to actually interview subjects, people who aren’t completely beholden by the immediacy of the web.

As David Appell astutely observed a few months ago:

For example, I think Andrew Sullivan, by becoming a blogger, has completely ruined his standing as a writer of serious political and gay analysis. Now he posts 40 times a a day, and includes so many insipid or inconsequential things and meaningless pieces of campaign gossip, and very, very little (i.e. none) of what he writes changes my life in any way whatsoever. I have stopped reading him.

And no five-page Atlantic essay providing excuses for this form of blogging will justify it.

The LA Times’s James Rainey weighs in on the Huffington Post and tries to assess if it really is the newspaper of the future, as the New Yorker asserted a few months ago.

After reading the article, it looks like Rainey gave the blog/website a C, recognizing that it has broken a few stories but also lacks in-depth investigative pieces.

When PBS published my article about bloggers attending the Democratic Convention in Denver, there were dozens who commented at their own blogs and elsewhere mocking these bloggers by claiming they wouldn’t provide much of a counterpart to MSM coverage.

For all you naysayers, I give you this report from Glenn Greenwald.

…a “digital marketing” blog that doesn’t even bother displaying its contact information. Nor an easy-to-find link so a potential customer can find his or her way to the company’s front page (you have to scroll down to the bottom to find it, and even when you reach the front page you have to scroll down to search out the contact info).

Keep trying, you’ll get this “online marketing” thing some day.

Inviting permanent guest bloggers onto your site certainly has its benefits. It enables you to produce an Instapundit-esque stream of posts, a ticker tape of limp snarky comments and context-lacking links.

But it also comes with its fair share of risks. Case in point: Protein Wisdom. For awhile it was buoyed by the shallow, inflated ego of its creator, Jeff Goldstein, until the knee-jerker decided he’d rope in a few playground Lollipop Guild members, affectionately known to site regulars as “Dan Collins” and “Karl.” Mr. Goldstein then hopped in the back seat, only resurfacing when impending complete and utter embarrassment and humiliation demanded it. Which was quite often.

As the Farkers like to say, hilarity ensued. The first noticeable case of LOL-inducement came when Dan Collins, overcome with with a bad case of the Schadenfreude, decided to use the blog and its sizable audience to deride and mock an ex girlfriend he stopped dating 25 years ago by linking to an article that referenced a rather unfortunate occurrence in her life.

But nothing compares to the grand finale, which we witnessed today. Due to the aforementioned context-lacking tendencies of blogging, I’m not sure of every detail of what actually took place, but James Wolcott has provided as good a time line as you’re going to get without meticulously combing through the archives and comments section of Protein Wisdom. And while I think that such reading would make for an apposite punishment for probation violators, I would never wish to inflict it on my own readers. So Wolcott will have to suffice.

Chez Pazienza, a former CNN producer who was fired six months ago for having a personal blog, obtained a copy of the new blogging policy that his former employer sent out to all staff (I’ve also copy and pasted it below). While it allows employees to blog, they have to get it approved by a supervisor and it bars them from mentioning anything that CNN would cover — in other words, it keeps them from talking about just about anything but their own belly lint. And even that would be ruled out if we all found out tomorrow that a new form of AIDS is spread through belly lint.

What especially caught my eye was the rules for commenting on other websites or chat rooms:

It depends on what you’re commenting on. A chat room is, of course, a public place. If you identify yourself, or could in any way be identified, then you should not comment on anything CNN reports on. Remember, even though you don’t say who you are, someone else might reveal your identity. AND if you’re discussing things that are in the news, keep in mind you could be seen as representing CNN, and therefore you should not comment on the issues CNN covers.

Is it just me, or is the company openly suggesting that its employees should engage in sockpuppetry?

I would have contacted CNN for comment, but I gave up looking for their media contact page after about two minutes.

And here’s the entire policy:

***NEW CNN POLICY REGARDING PERSONAL WRITINGS ONLINE***

We’ve gotten a number of questions from CNN staff wanting clarification of CNN policy on communicating publicly about our work, or on news or public affairs — on the internet. In Blogs. In Chatrooms. On video sharing sites. On social networking sites.

Below are some of the typical questions — and our answers. We hope this is helpful to everyone,

After reading — please don’t hesitate to call or email anyone at Standards and Practices if you have further questions. (See contact info below).

MOST IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER:

UNLESS GIVEN PERMISSION BY CNN MANAGEMENT, CNN EMPLOYEES ARE TO AVOID TAKING PUBLIC POSITIONS ON THE ISSUES AND PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS ON WHICH WE REPORT.

The best rule of thumb is, keep in mind whether what you are doing or saying is “in public.” In most cases, what you write online is public or can be made public.

CAN I COMMENT IN A CHAT ROOM?

It depends on what you’re commenting on. A chat room is, of course, a public place. If you identify yourself, or could in any way be identified, then you should not comment on anything CNN reports on. Remember, even though you don’t say who you are, someone else might reveal your identity. AND if you’re discussing things that are in the news, keep in mind you could be seen as representing CNN, and therefore you should not comment on the issues CNN covers.

HOW ABOUT MYSPACE, FACEBOOK OR OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES?

Again, on these sites only write about something CNN would not report on. Don’t list preferences regarding political parties or newsmakers that are the subject of CNN reporting. Local issues that CNN wouldn’t report on would be OK. And of course private communication with friends or family about issues that aren’t in the news is fine. If you are not sure, ask your supervisor or S&P for parameters on posting. (S&P contact info is listed below).

Also keep in mind that you should not be commenting or writing about what goes on in the workplace at CNN without specific approval by CNN senior managers. For example, in some cases there have and will be exceptions made to have some staff get information out to an outside audience on platforms like Twitter about our upcoming coverage plans.

But without those approved exceptions, your workplace activity is proprietary and so you should not be writing on these sites about what goes on behind the scenes here at CNN.

CAN I POST MY WORK ON YOUTUBE, PODCASTS OR OTHER VIDEO SHARING SITES?

You should not post any CNN material online unless it is approved. Likewise, if you make a short video on your own time, if there’s any question about it being something that CNN might air, first ask someone before posting it. And again, if the subject touches on anything you might cover or CNN reports or may report on, you should likely stay away from it. If it is a close call, ask your supervisor or S&P.

CAN I POST TO iReport.com?

This site was developed specifically for non-CNN material, so no, you shouldn’t. However, a separate procedure has been developed for CNN’ers to send in material. It’s called weReport and you can see the details for how it works at http://sketch.turner.com/wereport. As always, if you capture pictures or video on news stories call the national desk and they’ll help you arrange to feed it in.

HOW ABOUT SECOND LIFE?

CNN’ers are encouraged to visit Second Life, just keep in mind it’s a public place and the same rules (listed above) apply as they would to “real” public life.

CAN I HAVE MY OWN WEBSITE OR BLOG?

Yes. But you should notify your supervisor about it, to have it cleared as a non-conflict for your work. Your supervisor may choose to then have it cleared at another level or by S&P. And again, you shouldn’t post commentary on anything you might cover in your work or CNN may report on, or write about the CNN workplace or post CNN material without permission by a senior CNN manager.

WHAT ABOUT POSTING LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES, ARTICLES FROM OTHER PUBLICATIONS AND VIDEO FROM OTHER SOURCES?

Again, if your web activity clearly shows that you are taking a position on an issue CNN reports on or is likely to report on, you should avoid such activity.

In addition, you should not operate under an alias on your website or blog in order to participate in biased public behavior. Despite your use of an alias to express a view that may present a conflict of interest, it is still your opinion. Your real identity and occupation could be revealed by someone else at any point.

WHY SHOULDN’T I COMMENT ON NEWS OR CURRENT AFFAIRS?

Unless given permission to comment publicly on the issues or people we report on as a CNN analyst or commentator, it is important that you and all other CNN employees be independent and objective regarding the news and people that we cover.

If you publicly declare your preference for issues or candidates or one side or the other of the public policy issues CNN reports on, then your ability to be viewed as objective is compromised.

We appreciate that everyone has a life outside work and we encourage all of our employees to get involved with the issues that are important within their communities. That said, you need to avoid any appearance of bias or partiality. It’s just one of the responsibilities associated with working for a news organization.

WHAT IF I DON’T WORK DIRECTLY WITH NEWS GATHERING OR NEWS REPORTING BUT ELSEWHERE WITHIN THE SUPPORTING DEPARTMENTS OF CNN?

In discussions about this issue with your colleagues across CNN, it was felt by them that it was important to have this policy apply across the board. If you don’t follow this policy, and you are officially a CNN employee, the loss of objectivity won’t just apply to you, but could be associated with CNN. Therefore this policy applies to all CNN employees in all departments worldwide.

WHAT ABOUT FREELANCE EMPLOYEES AND INTERNS?

Supervisors should make sure freelancers and interns read this policy now — or on their first day going forward — and commit to following it.

CAN I GIVE SPEECHES, OR WRITE ABOUT CNN?

CNN reserves the right to say who gives speeches or makes personal appearances on behalf of CNN. A number of your colleagues do give speeches to schools, colleges, and other organizations. Those requests must first be approved by your supervisor and then will go through CNN PR for review. PR will bring them to S&P for final review and approval taking into consideration who the invitation is from, the subject matter to be discussed — and/or whether travel expenses/an honorarium are being paid. Our employees write books, and occasionally do other outside writing, but it all must be approved by your supervisor first, and then by PR and by S&P as appropriate. This policy is outlined in Section E of the Standards & Practices Policy Guide. Every employee should have a Guide and should read it and review it. (If you don’t have a Guide, please ask your HR representative for one.)

Melanie Kroll probably doesn’t appreciate the irony of her situation.

She was fired this week from her job at 1-800-Flowers.com, a floral delivery service, after a death threat was sent to popular science blogger PZ Myers from her work email address. The irony stems from the fact that she most likely heard about Myers only because the Catholic League had attempted to get him terminated from his job at the university where he teaches.

Myers, an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris, had published a controversial blog post on July 8 titled “IT’S A FRACKIN’ CRACKER!” The cracker in this instance was referring to a Eucharist — a small wafer considered by Catholics to be the body of Christ — that had been smuggled uneaten out of a church by a Florida man. The incident caused public outrage from some Catholics and after the Catholic League condemned the action the man received multiple death threats. He finally succumbed to the pressure and returned the wafer to the church.

Myers is a vocal atheist and his blog post expressed incredulity and anger that a person would be harassed in such a way over what Myers considered a…well, cracker. At the end of the post he called his readers to action. “Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers?” he wrote. “There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare.”

Eventually Myers’s writing reached Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, and in his typical fashion he went on the attack. The Catholic organization sent out a press release encouraging Catholics to email the president of the University of Minnesota and demand that action be taken.

But Myers received a large number of emails as well, many of which were vitriolic and hateful. A few of those threatened the blogger with physical violence or even death. Citing a disclaimer on his blog that he has the right to reprint any emails that threatened violence, he posted two such messages on July 13, making sure to include the addresses and other identifying information of those who sent them.

Many of his readers noticed that one of those two emails came from what appeared to be a work address — 1-800 Flowers. The subject of the email read “your short life” and in the body the person wrote, “… You have two choices my fucked up friend, first you can quit your job for the good of the children. Or you can get your brains beat in … I give you till the first of the month, get that resignation in cunt”.

Several people took the post as their cue to fight back. 1-800 Flowers was flooded with emails and phone calls alerting the company that one of its employees was using her work email to send potentially criminal messages. It wasn’t long before the floral company announced that Melanie Kroll — the employee using that address — had been terminated.

But did Kroll actually send the email? Greg Laden wanted to find out.

Laden is a researcher and adviser at the University of Minnesota — though he works at a different campus than Myers — and maintains his own science blog. In a phone interview he told me that he emailed Kroll shortly after Myers posted her message and asked if she had written it.

Laden received several emails from the address and in one of them a man claiming to be Melanie’s husband, Charles Kroll, said that he had been the one who sent the threat.

“It was basically saying ‘I did it, it wasn’t my wife. I was wrong for sending it,’” Laden said. “What I did then was publish a post called ‘PZ Myers Death Threat Confession.’ … I explained what I learned from the letter, that this guy is saying his wife didn’t do it. It’s not that I’m really supporting his position, I just thought it would be reasonable to do that.”

If Charles’s claims are to be believed, then at some point he either purposely or accidentally logged on to his wife’s email account to fire off his angry email. In a comment thread in another blog the husband said he made the threat “in the same way one does when saying ‘I’ll beat your ass’, ‘or kick I’ll kick your butt’ or other such niceties used by members of the unpolished masses, such as myself.”

Regardless of whether he sent it, Melanie was out of a job. When Myers learned that his readers were sending harassing emails to the address he seemingly became apoplectic, writing that he never intended for his readers to contact 1-800 Flowers. After all, he said, there was the very real possibility that someone had hijacked her address to send the threats.

But should he have been surprised? Shouldn’t he have expected his relatively large audience to launch a counter attack when he made it so easy to do so?

This is a question that many bloggers are facing as they consider whether they should reprint controversial and/or hateful email they receive. A few have experienced a fair amount of backlash after they engaged in such activity.

Gossip blogger Perez Hilton, for instance, is currently being sued for $25 million by a woman who claims she received hundreds of angry emails and was fired from her job after the blogger published her hate mail, address, and office phone number on his site. “Indeed, Mrs. Wargo would not have been fired, but for the publication of her email address,” her filing states. Whether her lawsuit holds any water is yet to be determined — $25 million is a ridiculously high number — but the incident highlights the question of who owns the text of an email once it has been sent. Does it automatically become the property of the blogger, or does the sender have any rights — copyright or otherwise — that could prevent the message from being posted?

Luke Jackson has been thinking about this question a lot lately. By day Jackson is a Los Angeles attorney but in his free time he writes and submits short stories to magazines and anthologies. Back in March he submitted a short story to Helix, a speculative fiction online magazine, and received a rejection from the publication’s editor, William Sanders, that same day.

The rejection languished in his inbox for several months until he one day posted it in the comments section of another person’s Livejournal blog. The thousands of people who eventually saw the rejection were shocked by its contents.

Referencing an Islamic extremist character in the story, Sanders wrote that he was “impressed by your knowledge of the Q’uran and Islamic traditions. (Having spent a couple of years in the Middle East, I know something about these things.) You did a good job of exploring the worm-brained mentality of those people - at the end we still don’t really understand it, but then no one from the civilized world ever can - and I was pleased to see that you didn’t engage in the typical error of trying to make this evil bastard sympathetic, or give him human qualities.” Later in the email he wrote that “the narrator seems to be saying that it was this incident which caused him to take up the jihad, but he’s being mendacious (like all his kind, he’s incapable of honesty);”

The Livejournal comment was soon linked to by dozens of blogs. Many who read it felt that Sanders had been referring to Muslims with his incendiary comments and quickly labeled him a bigot. It wasn’t long before the editor learned that the rejection had been posted and became angered, banning Jackson from ever submitting to the magazine again. What followed was a lengthy debate across several blogs and message boards over whether it was considered ethical for a writer to post his rejections in a public forum. Several bloggers engaged in a Post A Rejection Day, in which they published story rejections they had received on their own sites.

I contacted Sanders to get his thoughts on the matter, but after several exchanges we were unable to agree on interview conditions — he wanted to place restrictions on what subjects we would discuss and how I could incorporate his quotes into my article. I also emailed Jackson, who later told me in a phone conversation that he felt ambivalent over whether it was professional for him to have posted the rejection.

“If I was working in a professional capacity, like as an attorney, I would never copy something publicly,” he said. “Of course as an attorney I have client privilege and all of our emails have the caveat that it can’t be reposted or relayed whatsoever. In a business capacity, yeah if I worked for a business I don’t think I would post it as well. It’s just that I really didn’t necessarily see this as professional because this is William Sanders’s home front operation and writing is something that I don’t think pays a lot of money. I don’t see myself making a living as a writer, especially now. And I think that this realism kind of colored my actions as well. That’s probably why I didn’t react strongly, I don’t believe that the rejection was business correspondence.”

I asked Jackson whether he thought this had hurt his chances of being published elsewhere and if posting the rejection would have any long term effects. He replied that this remained to be seen, though he noted that a few fiction editors had reacted negatively to what he had done. What perplexed him most, however, was that he had seemingly been the first person who had encountered this problem.

“What’s strange to me is that it seems like this is the first time in history it’s ever come up,” he said. “Some people are saying that posting rejection letters is done all the time and there are people saying that people should be shot for doing it. Some people think it’s a generational thing … the idea is that older editors basically just expect privacy because they’re used to letters. That’s something that I certainly didn’t dwell on. Just as William Sanders didn’t dwell on his rejection letter before he dashed it out, I didn’t dwell on putting it up on Livejournal comments. In hindsight it’s shocking to me that this is an issue that hasn’t been resolved. I guess people have posted their rejections before but it’s never contained such controversial content.”

I asked Laden what his philosophy was on reposting hate mail and whether he believed that Melanie should be fired for sending Myers a death threat. He replied that while he considered it fine for the professor to publish the message he also didn’t think she should have been terminated. Laden argued that if it was true that her husband had sent it from her address without knowing, then the IT department for 1-800 Flowers was as much to blame as anyone else. They should have provided safeguards for this sort of situation, he said, and done more to educate employees on how to avoid it.

But as for his own policy on hate mail, he decided at some point that he would refrain from posting it.

“If you have a disclaimer on your site then you’re free to do whatever you want with an email,” he said. “With my own policy, I decided not to do it. I don’t want to scare people away from sending me email. I have not received any death threats, but in the chance I would, I report them to the IP abuse number or contact the appropriate police authorities. Then it’s up to them to decide whether anything should be done.”

Contact me at simon.bloggasm@gmail.com