How to define "Off the Record" to novice bloggers

We were talking recently about how John Kerry had that blogger meeting "Off the Record" in L.A. and that it appeared that one attendant seemed to have a funny way of understanding what that meant. Well, how about this? How would you feel if your post was published on a right wing site? If you're FINE with that, then it's okay to post. If not, then best to keep to yourself. I will give a partial link without the http, so that we can all look at this as a tutorial on what "Off the Record" means:

newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/6/4/225033.shtml



When I first read this guy's story, I winced. It's one thing to be there and have a nice conversation; quite another to publish off the record remarks. Should someone tell this guy that he kind of messed up? It's not fatal, and will be forgotten, but I REALLY want politicians to trust us. This guy did NOT help bloggers out with his unprofessionalism.

I'm not sure that he understands "off the record" in the way that the rest of us here do.

Oh and btw, one or two of those remarks seem uncharacteristic for JK, even in that atmosphere, and especially that these folks were not selected in the same way as our December group (remember, we paid money and traveled, without even any idea that we would get the privilege of sitting down with John Kerry).

I would not be so sure that the blogger didn't embellish a bit. Maybe he didn't, maybe he did.

I don't think he had any malicious intent. Actually, in a weird sort of way, it was kind of cute -- we're so used to those cynical beltway journalists or backstabbing former Kerry staffers -- but this guy just comes across as very innocent. He figured since he didn't take notes that he was doing it right. Seriously, I really think he didn't understand what off the record meant. Plus I feel for him with the snark that the RW site gave him. I hope Kerry isn't too mad about this, and views it the way I do -- he's talking to REAL people who know nothing about cynical beltway politics and that is refreshing.

The folks who went to Boston were astonished to be sitting down with the Senator at that bar. (Shocked, speechless, ahm, gobsmacked, you get the idea.) However, we all were there for encouragement and wouldn't repeat anything that was said in confidence. (And we were given a specific request from Kerry that we blab about what was said. We thought that was trust and reciprocated with trust and some respect.)

Ahm, this guy should know the rules. He was present at other coffees with other 'Big Dems.' I dare say he might not be invited to moe of them unless he learns discretion.

Know the rules. Everyone knew the rules. There were staff members present, what was expected was discussed before JK joined us and JK also touched on how he envisioned the meeting.

Throughout the entire campaign bloggers from around the country attended campaign events and wrote about them, some got posted on the Kerry blog, some were posted on other blogs. This is not an entirely new concept to JK, he's simply doing more to work with the bloggers and be more accessible.

"especially that these folks were not selected in the same way as our December group"

I'm really surprised by the comments I'm reading here. The bloggers at the meeting were selected by a blogger who has worked closely with JK's staff since July '03.

They were all bloggers who:

1) volunteered for the campaign
2) have written about JK in the past
3) respect JK and walked away with an even greater respect for him then they came with.

The point of the meeting was to give more bloggers access to JK and have them write about the experience.

Which is apropos to a group called the John Kerry forum. We have put up with Swift Boat attacks, people who take any little minute statement to trash Kerry and so forth and we are sensitive to anything that might cause more problems.

Defensiveness is not a bad thing. It means that we are hyper-vigilant about what we do and say. We want to help. I would rather err on the side of caution on comments. The 'impeachment' remarks from last Dec, which came from staff and found their way into the press came soon after the Birthday event. It bothered me. I don't like doing clean-up and I just wondered if the ground rules had been explained prior to the meeting to the assembled bloggers. You answered that question.

Again, no apologies, I would rather err on the side of caution.

and being defensive of JK, putting up with SB attacks and doing clean up is not exclusive to this group.

I see things in this forum that bother me frequently. I even went so far as to start a private forum, where things that might not be appropriate to be discussed here on a search engine accessible forum, could be discussed in a private area that is not search engine accessible.

I'd rather err on the side of caution too, but the extent of that is not made public.

The "selection" process WAS different. The December group made a financial commitment up front, along with things like mailing around the cards, with no fore-knowledge of the reward. That signifies a particular level of commitment not necessarily present in a group that doesn't make such an up-front effort.

My comment was not judgemental of the process, just a statement of fact as I perceive it.

I stand by my statement that "I'm not sure that he understands "off the record" in the way that the rest of us here do." It is obvious from the comments that many here think "off the record" means what I think it means, which is that he shouldn't have written about what was said.

If, OTOH, permission was given to write about what was said, then that's different - but HL himself wrote that it was supposed to be "off the record" and to me (and evidently quite a few people) those are two different things.

The rest of my comment was made for a reason that is now moot. Although I did actually think it true when I wrote it, and being told that I am wrong about that, I have some rethinking to do.

This whole thing was a very different circumstance from Kerry supporters going to a Kerry event and it really can not and should not even be compared. There is an effort being made to reach out to bloggers who are not affirmed Kerry supporters and that's a very good thing. Just like JK posted on Kos and HuffPo, he's reaching out to other bloggers in many different ways.

KG, I feel that you are being rather dismissive of the Boston birthday group as 'just Kerry supporters'. Granted, we may have bought the initial tickets as supporters and some of our group came from across the country for the event. However, we were introduced as a group of bloggers and subsequently met the Senator as such, with serious questions and answers on both sides.

Yes, it is indeed great that Kerry is reaching out to bloggers of all stripes - including non-supporters, but he also understands and appreciates the value of having dedicated bloggers who are supporters on various sites.

We are all in this together for a common goal, and it's really not productive for us to fight over this and become territorial. The internet is vast, the sites are many. There is plenty of room for all of us Kerry supporters/bloggers and then some. So I say lets work together. :-)

LK

I'm not being dismissive at all, I simply said the two events can not be compared and they shouldn't be. For a multitude of reasons - including the ones you brought up.

Having been involved with the campaign and since then in a very direct manner, I know very well that the Senator "also understands and appreciates the value of having dedicated bloggers who are supporters on various sites."

Yes, we are all in this together and have a common goal, that said I wonder why there is so much second guessing about this when it had been explained earlier.

this weekend in Worcester, MA. Massachusetts Dems are really just starting to get the message that they need to start to treat the online world seriously. I talked about this with Cam Kerry and with his co-chair for Victory '06, Kathie Clark, and have some meetings planned where I can walk them through the web. I hope to be advising some of the Victory '06 folks on the web as well as doing some work for the Mass Dem Party. This should make some of the events in the late summer and fall that involve all sorts of 'big Dems' in Mass fun and informative to live-blog. (I met some great young kids who should intern. Perhaps they can get real jobs from this. It would be good for the officials involved and good for Mass Dems!)

I also talked about this with my congressman and others in the State Dem power structure. (I talked with my Congressman about exactly the issues I wrote about here.) This is still a very new medium and we have a lot to communicate. (It was very interesting to meet some folks this weekend who remember John Kerry's first campaign in Mass in 1982. A lot of folks around here go way back with the Senator from Massachusetts. It was fun and interesting to talk to them and tell them about the web and how it works and doesn't work.)

I hope to continue to talk to some Mass people next week and I am looking forward to the live-blogs that I will be doing at the Take Back America conference. That should be fun. We will have a chance to talk to a lot of people. I will look for you there, KG. I guess we will both be busy little bees recording events and such for the web.

It will be interesting to see how you and they manage to use the web for Massachusetts. It really sounds like this was a great convention.

I look forward to reading what you and KG have to say next week. Both of you are incredible.

I cringed myself this morning when this popped up as a John Kerry Google Alert item. IMO if JK wanted what he said repeated he would have wanted the folks in attendance to take notes so they could have quoted him correctly (or at least not solely from memory). I know the temptation not to tell the world is strong, but still ...

While, I do agree with you all that "off the record" means keep it to yourself, we are dealing with human nature here and a new medium -blogging. Meeting someone important and wanting to share the excitement and relay what was said to draw attention to your blog is understandable if nothing else.
In that respect, I feel Senator Kerry should recognize this, and no matter what the setting, don't say anything that he wouldn't want to see repeated. Senator Kerry having to answer for these purported accusations could look disingenuous trying to refute them.
The remarks about Bush "attributed" to Senator Kerry are more jovial than serious in this situation and I doubt will be taken seriously,but he must know he is being watched and many people are waiting for mistakes so they can pounce on those mistakes.

open. I seriously doubt that these comments merit any response. If they gain any steam, he would simply have his staff say that he was misunderstood or misquoted or if the statements are far off and Kerry feels the real content is acceptable, he could free the other bloggers to comment. I think, even in public, Kerry has a tendancy to go to the edge in some comments - quotes from memory likely take it a step further, but it's not what he said. I can't think of anyone who has both made the type of tough comments he does who goes over the line less than he does. (Compare to Howard Dean)

Here I would quess that Kerry's Bush comment was closer to things he has said very publicly in speeches. The SC comment is extremely unlikely as their intelligence and ability is not the issue. It is very likely the blogger got that wrong. The big problem is that Kerry specifically told them it was off record.

when he doesn't want to be- off the record or not. It is not an easy feat, being both open,candide and cautious at the same time. If he sticks to facts rather than personal character assaults he should be fine. I agree, the SC comments seem out of place for Kerry-it is likely, as you said, the blogger got it wrong. The problem is people read the blogger and don't come to the same conclusions we do.

there's a problem. I know that when I wrote the Morristown event up - even with my husband and I combining our memories - I know we didn't get exactly what he said. (The only thing I later worried about having written was one joke about Brownie and his prior job - even though I had said he said "something like" Seeing it in print and not remembering the exact words used probably meant I should have avoided it - even though it was less a problem than these things.)

I think the problem is that blogging or posting is new - the idea that what some guy writes will be pulled up and given prominence is startling. I haven't gone back to see if the blogger has reacted to this. The problem for a public figure is that even doing as you suggest won't protect him. The blogged comment can be totally wrong.

How many people will bother to go back and check for corrections, or even read the original document?

And the right wingers who are grabbing the false quote and running with it sure aren't going to qualify what they write. The echo effect of the net is startling, and since it is more or less the wild west, politicians haven't figured out yet how to compensate. If someone grabs something out of context or erroneously quoted (and we know the vultures are constantly circling, looking for something they can hang on JK)it all becomes part of the great he said he said floating out there in the ether.

I think this is what JK is struggling towards with meetings like this, trying to figure out who's out there, how it all works, and hopefully how it can be put to positive use. I can't see how it can be done without some stumbles along the way - I give him credit for making the attempt.

really mind. Saying it's off the record to the bloggers was probably a good way to stay casual for all of them.

If Kerry expected stringent conditions he would have vetted the session more, but I really doubt he wanted that formality. I think he was making everyone MORE comfortable by saying it.

Thank you BLM. It's all good. Honestly bloggers need to be courted and this was an excellent start.

However none of you were there. I was. I organized the meeting, I invited the bloggers. I was there when they were all told it's okay to write about it, but it was prefered that no one take notes.It was not meant as an interview, but a conversation that bloggers could write their own perception of.

If you look through the photos of the meeting on my photo gallery you won't see anyone taking notes.

The couple of right wing blogs who have picked up on HL post have taken things out of context -- that's nothing new is it?

Newsmax says: 'Failed presidential candidate John Kerry blasted President Bush on Thursday as a "criminal" who has been "looting the country."'

HL said: "Kerry agreed completely with someone’s assessment that everything that Bush does is solely for the purpose of looting the country. He basically said that Bush and his cohorts are criminals and that history will judge them so."

Note that there were NO direct quotes in this statement from JK, furthermore I'm not going to take the time to look through JK's speeches and press releases but I know catagorically this is not anything he has not said ON THE RECORD.

Again Newsmax said: '"Kerry basically said that Bush and his cohorts are criminals" the blogger continued. "At some other point he referred to Supreme Court Justices Alito, Scalia, and Roberts as 'Idiots.'"'

HL said: "At some other point he referred to Supreme Court Justices Alito, Scalia, and Roberts as Idiots."


I fully understand that some of you are concerned, but I know that JK and staff were

1) very pleased with the meeting with the bloggers
2) have read EVERYTHING the bloggers posted
3) were very pleased with what was written by the bloggers

JK was very frank and open with the bloggers and quite honestly he said nothing, I have not heard him say on the record in the past months.

HL didn't mess up to my knowledge and I have had feedback on the meeting.

EDITED TO ADD:

Don't assume that these bloggers are "novices" because they are not members of this group.

It was what I was thinking too.

I am happy that they had a good look at Kerry and who he was.

Now that I have read the reports from the bloggers on their blogs, it seems obvious it was a success.

I thought the fact that the blogs you gave us links to were so uniformly positive made it a success. I am surprised by the SC comment.

Kerry may well feel that the gain from speaking openly and letting a large number of bloggers - who are today's opinion leaders - really know him is worth any possible flack from the RW from speaking openly. Even if Kerry never said anything the least bit controversial, 2004 shows the RW would simply make stuff up anyway.

I am a TOTAL novice. And I consider you, KG, to be extremely professional with one of the best blogs on the internet. Your summary of the event as well as all the other bloggers were great. Your idea to have this event and organizing it was wonderful. My criticism rests with the one blogger (and there were rumblings about his comments almost immediately way before the Newsmax article). Overall, HL had some interesting things to say. However, I felt quoting Kerry saying that the SC justices are "idiots" was unhelpful. But since you now say that the Kerry staffers were fine with it, then I guess I got myself upset for nothing. Still, if I ever had the honor to have an "off the record" conversation with Kerry I would have been far more cautious, keeping in mind that Newsmax and other RW blogs would be swooning in for quotes that showed Kerry to be anything less than senatorial or presidential. But that's the beauty of blogs; you can state you're opinion, and have others disagree with you.

I'm extrememly cautious when I write about JK, but I get that not every other blogger is and also think that JK's staff does as well. HL offered up a very disclaimer in the comments of his blog thread explaining himself to the complaints in his comments that he shouldn't have witten off the record stuff. It's was a pretty deep conversation and a lot was said, HL barely touched on any of it honestly. I found a forum where someone was discussing it last night and one person said, if JK did say these things I like him even more now. We expect the right wingnuts to paint things badly. I could tell you stories of how I've been taken out of context and posted all over the place by those fools.

First, I completely agree that comments off the record should not be divulged. People don't share confidential information and expect it to be released. On the other hand, there is alway that chance, so I doubt most people share things that they are afraid might get out. It appears JK didn't intend these comments to be secret, and they really weren't confidential information.

Which leads to the second point, and why these RW articles are a rouse. Kerry has referred to the Bush administration's cronyism, extremism and corruption in many interviews, on the Senate floor and in e-mails, so who the hell is surprised? The headlines are a bit extreme, but it's the RW press. The headlines in some of the MSM can be pretty extreme too.

Yes, "Kerry has referred to the Bush administration's cronyism, extremism and corruption in many interviews, on the Senate floor and in e-mails." Nothing said in the meeting was new to me. It may have been to some who don't pay close attention.

In the end, it just proves that JK has the same opinion of bush*'s performance as 70% of America, so I don't see that it hurts him any. Who is going to disagree with him? He could have said gas is expensive, also a known fact. The only people who would have issue with his comments are the 29%, and they wouldn't care what JK said. They're either terminally ignorant or they like what bush* is doing to this country.

Yes, 'off the record' should mean 'off the record', but in this case, no harm, no foul.

Bush sucks. Who didn't know that?

You'll notice that a couple of other RW outlets have picked up on the "criminal" and "idiot" comments, and are spreading it around the internets.

FWIW, if I was told that an event I was attending "off the record", it would signal to me that, while I could discuss the event and what was talked about, no specific quotes (especially inflamatory quotes) should be attributed to the interviewee.

But of course, I wasn't there.

go through all his press releases and speeches and find similar statements so we're not all worrying.

Bush sucks. Kerry agrees. What's new?
Of course, there could have been things said that should not have been printed. In that case, I would hope they would not be.
IMO, this, specifically, is no big deal.

Next?

I will only add that we were at JK's birthday party in DC--the one where someone also reported a remark we all heard him make, but interpreted differently from how it was reported (we thought we heard a JOKE, for chrissakes) and i know from conversations we all had after that that the Kerry folks know that such reports come with the territory.

During the campaign, even paid staff stepped in it. Paybacks are a bitch.

The guy made a mistake but he probably learned something and lessons learned need respect. If people keep making the same mistakes over and over, not to worry, consequences naturally arise.

I am sure everyone has something to learn here...

Any live-blog is a chance to learn. There are very few guideposts because the medium is so new and the connections between bloggers or posters on a board and actual elected officials is very new. This is why MH and I did such a long post-op review on what happened at Faneuil Hall in April. (We talked for hours about what went right and what went wrong and how to fix it next time. We talked about communication and how to better handle problems when they arise and so forth.)

Part of the reason I want to get involved in live-blogging anything in Mass (Or NH) is the opportunity to continuously learn from this process. Mistakes are inevitable. But you learn. I encourage people to ask about doing live-blogs in their areas on political events. Keep asking and keep trying, we all learn something everytime it we attempt this. And it's not just live-blogs, go to events and get stories up about them after the events as well. It's all a massive learning process.

My focus is to bring people along in the process with me. (Hey, you know, who died and made me the Queen of All Knowledge :) ) This is for practical reasons, including getting more people familiar with how this is done and over the 'butterflies' you get in your stomach when you attempt new things and to find people who are particularly good in certain areas and set them to work. (Again, I might not have knowledge in one area, but someone here does. Hey, let me do support and that person should do the writeup or we can do it together to get it started. That's how it should work. We are part of a team and that is a major strength.)

The main thing is to keep moving forward, keep going out there and talking to people and trying to get them to see that the 'blogs' are accessible and can be both fair and accurate. (There was a big fear of the anonymity factor of the web and the potential for writers to do these drive-by hits without the victim of the hits knowing who is doing them. That is lessening as the medium matures.)

I had a chance to talk about the blogging world this past weekend. So did VEK and WEL in Worcester. They presented themselves well and talked to a lot of different people about how this process works. They made themselves appealing and are trying to make good impressions. This is not so much for them at that moment but also for the benefit of the next person who comes along and asks for an interview or to live-blog a town hall or something. Positive impressions have been made and that makes it easier for that next person to do. And that is an overall good for everyone.

Blogging is not all that new for many people. There were political blogs and forums, before the 2004 Primaries - including DU which has been online since January 2001.

There are thousands of political blogs online now and many have been at this for 3 - 4 years. Some here in hte DU Kerry Forum were deeply involved with Kerry 2004 including: KarenDC, myself, Dr Ron, Sandnsea, FedUp, KJ, DavefromPrinceton.

Yes, it's still a learning process for many and it's wonderful that people want to learn more and get involved. I wholeheartedly agree that people should be doing live blogging at political events, and there are many who do (including most or all of the A-List blogs) either live-blog an event or write up an event after attending.

There's a chance taken any time any politician sits down with bloggers for an informal chat or does a conference call, which many politicians do. It's one that has to be taken in order to reach out to more bloggers. As KarenDC pointed out, what happened with HL isn't new and was a learning experience.

It's also very important to reach out to fellow bloggers, make contact by email, talk with them on the phone, meet them when possible. Los Angeles bloggers have social gatherings frequently that have been very beneficial for the L.A. bloggers in terms of establishing a networking base, making relationships to swap links, cross post on other blogs, etc.

I'm always happy to answer any questions about setting up a blog, getting it into the search engines, newsfeeds, etc.

one of the very few people who, because of my husband, had internet (Darpa-net, Arpa-net) access and an email account back in the good old days in the mid-to-late 80's. I was one of the first posters at an X-Files site after the airing of their very first episode.
I am old. Call me Yoda. :silly: But I'm not a geek. Geeks are smart. I'm just a smartass. :P

As for taking things out of context, anyone online who puts some else's words in quotes without providing a link to a credible (not biased) site isn't taken seriously by anyone who has been around for at least 10 minutes, minimum. Quoting people is damn tricky business, there is no fudging or even fixing grammer... the second anyone-- who wants to be taken seriously-- fudges a word, they're into fiction, period. Ask Patrica Smith, formally of The Boston Globe.



:dem:

they have to follow what you just said. Also, they have to follow the same rules that regular journalists have to follow. (such as keeping the sources anonymous or off the record etc...)

We agree it seems.

and that's not so strange to me. ;-)

Seriously, it was tempting at times to want to jazz up a quote, or to cut and paste quotes to make them seem as if they were said in sequence, when they weren't... but even at the low level of newspaperdom where I worked, that simply wasn't kosher, period, end of story. Small we were, but professional.

If anyone is really serious about getting quotes right via blogging an event, I strongly suggest taking a shorthand or speed writing course. It's really, really hard to write as fast as someone talks.

I was at work Friday and a little old lady was doing a great job of Bush Bashing. I was encouraging her, of course. :patriot:
Anyway, she said something I loved and out of instinct, I picked up a pencil and wrote it down verbatim...
She said (and I quote), "Bush is crookeder than a dog's hind leg."

In this case, the bad grammer, "crookeder" is what makes the quote, imo. Anyway, I told her we were soul sisters and I'd join her on a march to Washington. She made my day & week, without a doubt. :-)

And was writing quite voraciously as you can imagine!

I also looked at what others were keying into to see what floated their boat.

You can imagine my disgust when I later saw very few accounts in the media despite the efforts of the panel to answer questions.

I'm glad to see them taking the Kos Convention more seriously than they did the Rainbow Push Convention.

Writing fast is hard! LOL I used to carry a digital tape recorder (even took it to the Convention), but it takes so long to transcribe, it's almost worthless unless used for something that has a longer deadline.

I imagine your disgust and raise you one with this story... my ex-boss and I were interviewing Michael Moore along with about 20 other press and her stated goal in life was to ask him how many sources he used before he went to print. She asked her question. Michael Moore was surprisingly quiet and low-key in person, as opposite to his public speaking persona. He was gracious and complimented my ex-boss on her question and then told her that he used no less than two sources besides his inital source, and then had his lawyers fact-check every one of them before he went to press. He provided her with a copy of his book F9/11 with all of the sources listed in the back so she could look them up herself.

Later, she was adamant that she was covering the story, not me, and she going to write it up, not me. Okay fine, she was the publisher and my boss.

Now, coming to this county the very week his dvd came out was a huge, huge deal. He said we were the smallest county he'd ever spoken in, and he did it basically because he wanted show that he remembered that we existed out here in the boonies. So, how did my ex-boss cover the story? With what we called a "stand alone," that is, a picture with one or two sentences underneath the box. What did she say about her question to MM? That he said "he used more than one source."

I'm telling you RoL, I should have quit so many times before that day, but I should have quit over that one too. She didn't even begin to quote him correctly. Her bias took over her professionalism.

Anyway, a tape recorder is a help but if I'd stayed in that job I would have brushed up on shorthand for sure.

Am happy to hear you are covering events. I'm sure you are doing a fantastic job!
I've gone back to poetry/fiction. It's home base for me. :-)

edited because I called you Light up the Darkness instead of Ray of Light. Good grief! :o

'muckraker'; however, I sort of stink at the muckraker part because I tend to have too much sympathy for anyone who accidentally gives me information then realizes that I'm taking notes and then rushes and says, "That was off the record."

I should know better. Once said without a prior statement of "off the record" then it is fair game. however, I tend to let it slide because I imagine that person losing their job or worse...denying he/she said it to me. But I so very much respect the term "off the record" that I find myself trapped into not using their comments. Unfortunately, I've figured out that I would be a terrible journalist. I have so much info in my head that people have told me and then muttered 'off the record' that I should have printed. It's so much easier if they announce off the record right at the get-go because then I can rest easy about keeping a confidence but I can still internalize that information in my own self-growth and understanding.

Anyways... so now, I tell people up front that I intend to tell people what they tell me. Whether it's online or in a LTE. And furthermore I've learned to be upfront with the Congressmens' office and ask specifially for the press office so that I can get a statement to print.

It's how I knew that Spector's press secretary promised to put Gonzalez under oath during the NSA hearings but then failed to follow through on that promise. I'm actually rather proud that I caught Spector's office in this huge lie. And I've posted that information wherever I can.

And for that very reason that's why I have lots of sympathy for Jason Leopald's incident with the Rove story.


(Edited to add: ray of light...light up the darkness...it's all about bringing light and hope back so that's a-ok with me... Also...glad you're doing the poetry that you so clearly love.)

I heard/read Gonzalez was not under oath, and that Spector had dropped the ball (again), but had no idea that scoop came from you. Excellent catch!!!

I loved the job, but the politics in this town/county have to be felt to be believed and unfortunately, we both caught the brunt end of being outspoken outsiders in an area that hasn't seen change, or too many outspoken outsiders, (or liberals) move in. Ah well, que sara. It will add an interesting sidebar spice to our life stories someday down the road. ;-)

Back to the topic: one way to keep someone's feet to the fire is to carry a tape recorder. I found that people clammed up, it often hindered the interview, until they realized I was giving them eye contant, really listening, and then they relaxed. It might work, even as a prop, with someone you are determined to keep on the record, I don't know, I never found myself in that situation. In general, with today's instant global access via the internet, there will be need for old-fashioned skills (shorthand, speedwriting) and quick processing skills, to get the story framed and printed faster than ever before (or even imagined). My only real advice is: if you can find a single word or a central metaphor (something that comes to you in a flash), grab it, trust it, and use it to build your story around. (After hearing a presentation given by the pres of the Missouri law bar or whatever it was called, all I could think of on the way home was the word "advocate." Bingo, I had the brick to build the editoral on.)

RoL, I think your compassion will serve you well, even with the muckracking, seriously. Ultimately I think the desired end result of muckraking is change, and without compassion somewhere in the mix, change isn't usually an option or choice. It takes both, I think... an ability to stand up and take the hit and the ability to try and see where the other person is coming from, even, sigh, GWB (in my opinion, he is coming from a nighmare and apparently is too scared to wake up).

A great book to read is "A Civil Action." (We lived in Winchester, MA, right next door to Woburn, MA, where the story took place.) Going after the corrupt corporation nearly ruined the lawyer, but in the middle of all that crap, at the end of his rope, he found his own humanity. I thought it was a powerful story on several levels.

Omg, I digress, as usual! :eyes:

At any rate, thanks for the well wishes re: the poetry. Finished putting together volume II just this morning. It was fun and exasperating. But I wouldn't trade it for the world. Still not giving up politics, it's in the blood, but my writing is now being channeled via fiction and poems.

I salute everyone who is taking on the new medium of blogging political events and politicans... it's an exciting time and definately a new vista, one not traveled before. You all are writing the script and charting the learning curve. B-)

told other media the same thing. However, I know I posted the information far and wide in the blogosphere in the hopes that having it out here would make a difference. Apparently not.

However, your comment about shorthand, or speed writing, or taperecorders, does bring a point. I presume that when you are using a tape recorder the person needs to be told that, right? Can't have any Linda Tripp type thing...

I feel sorry for most politicians who probably never know who they can trust or who will turn out to intentionally back-stab them or even innocently say or do something that hurts them. Mostly I feel sorry for the lives they must lead--to always have to watch what they say or do. Who can the trust? And I'm not only thinking about the original posting in this thread, but I'm remembering the rumors after the election about THK...people claiming she was a shrew...! I'd be a shrew after 4 hours on a damn bus yet alone WEEKS! Even so, I doubt she was a shrew but maybe an off-the-record comment was released either accurately or inaccurately. We'll never know who said it or why they said it.

RE: rest of your comment...

Civil Action was a great book. He found his humanity but the rest of the system didn't. It upset me to no end!!!! The judges.....argggghhhhh!!!!

And the blogging is a learning experience. An example (in this thread of course) but also the whole Jason Leopold and William Pitt event. Bloggers have to realize they can get caught in spreading rumors and they also have a high standard (the same standard that journalists have) to live up to. They can create a frenzy and give nonstories legs or they can give something legs that end up looking bad for all of us.

But in the end, we all have to understand precisely the language of the trade: off the record, scoops, on the record, specific quotes v general ideas... And I think if in doubt a blogger could ask. There are many people in the kerry forum who are trustworthy who a blogger could ask in a pm or email. And I know KG has her special area too where a blogger could ask before posting.

(I haven't been to KG's special place in a while--lost the link and most likely forgot my password. So if anyone wants to pm it to me...that would be great.) Either way, it would be a great place to ask questions like what was under discussion.

Sorry I lost the thread of this thread... once the work-week starts, I'm a goner.
I'll PM you, now that FedUp has kindly explained to me how to enable that function!

they always right about how the big bad Kerry is going to try to take down their poor stupid ignorant chimp leader.