Which, in fact, is the case.

We are now in the age of Pirate Media. People taking advantage of access accorded them as ACTIVIST and FINANCIAL supporters of politicians, who then turn around and produce their private musings for the public to see on the Internet.

As my role model Fox Mulder put it: “Trust no one.”

>Jay Rosen Says:
April 16th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Hi everyone. I asked Time Magazine’s Jay Newton-Small why she called Mayhill Fowler’s report a “leak. ” To me it’s a report from someone who was there. I just thought it was a strange way to talk about the post. Today she wrote about it at Swampland…

Traditionally fundraisers have been closed to press and off the record.

What strikes me about this little firestorm is the underlying fear among us not so religious Obama supporters, namely that the truth he spoke about religious fundamentalism will offend the fundamentalists; we agree but wish he hadn’t said it, and so some of us blame the messenger.

There is a quandary here for Obama. One of his essential charms is his candor, one might say honesty. As this trait gets thrown back in his face, he will have to figure out whether he wants to take a more polished (but emotionally less connecting) approach or continue being himself. I suspect that the former, more cynical approach would backfire. I would like to think that the voters will respond to honesty on the stump as something long overdue and a significant virtue in itself.

But for the public and the readers, the “off record” debate is a canard.

The real issue is whether Fowler did a credible job of reporting the event and how her performance reflects on OTB and its standards.

And, Marc, if you’re going to try and censor my comments, you really should learn how to operate the system a little better–if you can.

I’ve been attending political events for a year, for Clinton, Kucinich, Edwards, and Obama, and have blogged about every one. No one ever told me not to. At several, I went not as a supporter, but as someone trying to decide who to vote for. I wrote what I saw, what I perceived, and my opinions and conclusions, strengths and weaknesses of all of the candidates.

I videotaped snippets of Obama’s remarks, not because I wanted them to show up on the news, but because I wanted to record a little slice of history for my son. I wanted him to be able to watch it and remember the time he shook the hand of the (hopefully) future president or (at minimum) an historic figure. I would say anyone in that room with a camera was doing the same. I’m not sure that journalists are doing anything terribly different from that, recording history as it happens.

I’m not going to change what I do because of this, except maybe buy a better video camera. I really hope the campaign doesn’t change anything either.

Am I a journalist? Nah. I’m a blogger, unapologetically so.

Traditionally fundraisers have been closed to press and off the record. But, in this new Internet age of bloggers, fundraisers – especially for Democrats – have become an increasingly grey area of on or off the record, closed or open to the press. The situation puts the Obama campaign in an awkward position because, frankly, if the major news organizations knew the campaign was knowingly letting in bloggers to these events they would demand open press access – after all they are the ones paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to travel with the campaigns: why should some blogger get access that their reporters don’t?

As for my usage of the term leak – I did not mean it in a derogatory way. Indeed, leaks to my mind are often a hallmark of good reporting. If I gave Jay or Mayhill offense, I apologize. I used the term in the literal sense: “To permit the escape, entry, or passage of something through a breach or flaw,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary. The campaign did not intend those comments for mass consumption or they would’ve invited the media and deemed the event “open press.” The fact that the comments leaked out is a good thing for journalism even as it forces us to question access and coverage in this new digital age.

Fascinating. If, as an OffTheBus blogger, I go to an on-the-record event that is not accessible to the press, then the report I file is a leak. Whereas if the press goes to an on-the-record event that is not accessible to me, the report filed is just… a report.

Can that be right? Yup. Read it yourself.

The real journalism issue is whether Fowler is a credible, responsible reporter. The answer is clearly no. She failed utterly to provide the context of Obama’s remarks and, as a result, presented work that was entirely misleading.

Moreover, the editors at OTB failed utterly at their jobs, part of which is quality control.

News organizations - professional or not - have an obligation to report on the mundane, trivial to the fantastic. I don’t have an issue with Fowler attending and reporting about an event - whether private or public. Whether invited or not. I don’t have a problem with her exposing Obama’s quote.

The problems I have are within the editorial decisions made prior to publishing the story, as well as some ethical concerns.

My two biggest nits:
1. Fowler is an admitted contributor/supporter to Obama’s campaign.
2. Editors at Huff Post had a MAJOR concern about his quote but failed to get a counter response from the Obama camp.

Like Hillary, I am beating a dead horse. I’ll shut up now.

I would expect a reporter to approach your hypothetical with the approach that asks the candidate WHY he or she said what they said.

The explanation of ‘why’ should not be a first person account of what the writer experienced. The account should not be based on feelings, opinion or assumptions. An accurate retelling of the event along with an explanation from the candidate would be fair.

And then the media shit storm would follow.

You would deplore and condemn her ethical lapse then, would you, now?

Despite what many of you are wishfully thinking, Obama-Hillbillygate was a very big deal.

At least a third, and up to half of the active electorate is neither partisan nor invested in the silly idea that the world will go straight to hell in the next 4 years, unless you vote Right or Left.

For that audience, Obama just took his second strike. The first was for hanging out, the last twenty years, with a racist nut-job who fawns over Calypso Louie and urges you to believe that the CIA cooked AIDS up in a lab to kill black people.

The second strike, for saying that rural working class whites only care about their right to bear arms, their pietistic brand of Christianity and illegal immigration because they don’t make enough money.

It’s all of one piece. The grand narrative of root cause and false conciousness.

For example, there is the State of California, the LAPD, etc., etc.

As you know.

Except that wouldn’t work, because senior people in the Obama campaign would recognize me and make sure I couldn’t get in.

Because I am a journalist.

My USC students, on the other hand, will be reporting for NPR and PBS this summer but sans any accreditation whatsoever. Two of my students have published in the Washington Post and two others in L.A. Times — with bylines in the news section. They are unaccredited. What are they? Students or journalists?

Lemonade? For sure. But your insistence on making these categorical divisions just doesnt hold up much anymore. To which editor at newwestnotes does someone complain if they dont like what you write?

None. Does that make you any lesser of a journalist? No. You couldnt get in to the Obama event indeed because you were “accredited.” Next time, try to go as a blogger!

Careful that your lemonade doesnt start to taste like sour grapes juice. Truth is Mayhill could get into the event that you couldnt precisely because she is more comfortable functioning in that area of ambiguity that your aren’t.

Bunkerbuster… “turdpile?” Now that’s some real elegant writing. That’s also the last straw for you. Bye now.