That's it - I'm going to change my name to Jean Claude Van Damm and hang my own shingle...
I don’t understand why the following concept is difficult to understand: If you are are working for or with a particular candidate, and then you write and publish an opinion piece lovin’ on that candidate or hatin’ on his or her opponent, you must disclose that relationship if you want to maintain any credibility whatsoever.
Chuck Muth has inserted himself in yet another Republican primary race, this time a rural Senate seat, and again he’s publishing hit pieces on one of the candidates without disclosing a past or current consulting relationship with the other candidate. (It’s been widely reported that Muth has long done consulting work for Ed Goedhart, and Muth’s Citizen Outreach CEO Dan Burdish apparently worked out of Goedhart’s office at the Legislative building in Carson City while the Assembly was in session.)
Jon Ralston called Muth (and the Nevada Appeal, where the piece was published) out on it, and the response it elicited from Chuck is… bizarre.
Muth claimed the article was published by mistake in the Appeal, and therefore the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. (Ignore that in Chuck’s “defense,” he shows screen captures of his E-mails with the Appeal wherein he clearly says he’s fine with the disclosure-less article that was published being published as is, he just expected a different one to run instead.)
But before the piece on the Goedhart/Goichoechea race ran in that newspaper, it was published on Chuck’s own blog.
Presumably, Chuck hit the “publish” button on his own blog post. Like, on purpose. And yet there wasn’t any disclosure there, either.
So here’s my primary beef – is Muth saying that because it’s “only” a blog and not a “real” newspaper, the basic rules of honesty and credibility don’t apply? Ugh. Did a guy who made a name for himself publishing on-line commentary REALLY make that argument? Really?
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Blogging is a critical tool to counteract the “gatekeeping” of an ideologically hidebound traditional media. Online publishing is the ultimate expression of the free exchange of news and ideas that the First Amendment was specifically designed to protect. But it only works if bloggers are credible, at least the more widely read ones. And bloggers are only credible if they don’t pretend to be impartial (even if ideological) observers when they clearly are not.
What’s so hard about disclosing a relationship with a candidate, anyway? I have no problem with a person working for a particular candidate explaining to me why they support that person. If anything, it means something that they’re willing to put their money and time where their mouths are and work to get their guy in office.
But as soon as they don’t make such disclosures, you have to wonder what else they (or their candidate!) might be hiding. When a self-appointed “conservative” does it, it hurts the credibility of our entire movement, and that’s something I refuse to tolerate.
"Again. I trust the non-elephant AGAIN. What do I keep thinking? At least this can't cost me money, can it?""
The consequences to all of this can go far beyond mere cred. Muth himself is already facing legal trouble for failing to be sufficiently transparent in his past political activities. But it could get even worse.
A judge in Oregon recently used the “bloggers aren’t journalists” to (very wrongly, in my view) award a $2.5 million judgment against a publisher of unflattering facts and opinion about a powerful law firm.
Now, I oppose journalist “shield laws” that were relied on in that case because I think we’re all journalists by birthright by virtue of the First Amendment, and I therefore oppose setting up some special protection for government approved news purveyors. But it’s exactly this kind of behavior that Chuk Muth regularly displays that makes government officials more and more likely to maintain exactly this distinction between ordinary citizens with a soapbox and “actual” journalists, thus insulating themselves from real citizen journalists who can and should be helping keep a public eye on their public servants.
What’s maddening is that Goicoechea really has said and done things which ought to give small government conservatives pause. Chuck’s failure to disclose his potential conflicts of interest in that race, however, now makes it incredibly easy to dismiss such criticisms as meaningless politics instead of the real, substantive policy debate a primary should be. That does nothing to help Ed Goedhart or to advance the philosophies Muth claims to share with him.
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The last line of Muth’s hit piece on Goicoechea just drips with unintended irony:
Politicians like Pete Goicoechea are fortunate that there are no truth-in-labeling laws that apply to campaign rhetoric.
It’s clearly not just the politicians who are so fortunate.
There is more to the story about the Oregon blogger…but I’m not sure many bloggers would like her being grouped with them. Unfortunately the media has grasped on to the wrong parts of this case when choosing its headlines.
The biggest problem in the case was that the Oregon shield law specifically did not shield electronic media (thus, she was not a journalist under that statute’s definition). She made specific allegations of fraud in her posts, claimed the shield law protected her source, and then when the shield law was found not relevant she did not produce the source and the jury found her claims false. The Washington state law and many other states do have a broader shield law that allows for bloggers. Maybe Oregon’s legislature will respond by amending the shield law.
In any event, she seemed to have it out for the plaintiff and she later basically extorted the plaintiffs by offering them online reputation services to clean up their bad online reputation that she contributed to.
Here is a good overview: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/12/07/investment-firm-awarded-2-5-million-after-being-defamed-by-blogger/
your statement
“What’s maddening is that Goicoechea really has said and done things which ought to give small government conservatives pause.”
IS NO different then this statement:
“Politicians like Pete Goicoechea are fortunate that there are no truth-in-labeling laws that apply to campaign rhetoric.”
I dont see a legitimate reason for your chronic complaining.
Because, Laurel, when I criticize Goicoechea, I a) do it without scorching the earth because I knew having him in office is orders of magnitude better than having a liberal Democrat in that office, and b) do it without the credibility eliminating baggage of having had my 501(c)(3) CEO working out of his primary opponent’s Legislative office just a few months prior. If you really can’t see the difference, I just don’t know what to tell you.
@Martin, thanks for the comment. I agree with a lot of it, but didn’t want to veer off into a deeper analysis of that case in an ongoing effort to prevent my posts from going over 2,000 words every time…
Bottom line is that if she acted improperly, she should be subject to defamation judgments against her just as the law has allowed for centuries. But when “bloggers” become different from “journalists” in the law anywhere, it necessarily requires government officials to be the gatekeeper of what an “official” journalist is or is not, and that flies in the face of the First Amendment and liberty itself.
That, and after looking at the statute, I don’t understand how the judge reached his conclusion.
For those who are interested, here’s a bunch more commentary that was posted this morning on the issue that’s smarter on the details than I am.