What should be published?

The news is a tricky business. What follows should be a good reminder for everyone to think long and hard before they press “Publish” on their blog.

Here’s the background: The Tribune’s Patrick O’Callaghan posted a blog entry about an Indignant Caller who was upset that the Tribune would endorse a certain candidate whom the caller reported seeing repeatedly with an off-leash dog, a violation of leash laws.

The Tribune did not reveal the names of the Caller or the candidate. But it’s hard to say the Tribune left the candidate totally anonymous. The post revealed a lot: the candidate’s gender; that the Tribune had endorsed her; that she was “eminently competent and experienced in an office she already held;” plus she’s—obviously—a dog owner.

Here’s the trouble that we see.

First, anonymous sources have their place in journalism; we at Exit133 find them quite useful from time to time. But having an anonymous subject in an article can be dangerous and is best left to gossip columns trying to avoid libel suits. An anonymous subject leaves everyone wondering and gets the rumor mill churning.

Second, the anonymous candidate was accused of breaking the law, something no candidate would like. But since it’s about an anonymous candidate, it’s hard for a candidate to fight back because they don’t want to stir the pot any worse.

But Councilmember Julie Anderson did fight back. She felt readers would believe the post was referring to her, as she fit the “profile” established in Patrick O’Callaghan’s story. She responded quite strongly to the allegation in the comments below the post.

But it wasn’t her. Author Patrick O’Callaghan later confirmed via e-mail with Anderson that it wasn’t her the caller was referring to, and suggested Anderson let her supporters know. Anderson wants to the Trib to set the record straight.

The Tribune can easily print, “Our Indignant Caller wasn’t referring to Julie Anderson,” but that would put them into a tricky situation because another candidate who might come close to fitting the profile could want them to confirm that it wasn’t her as well. Would they print that name too?

And what if the candidate who it actually does refer to wants the Tribune to say it wasn’t about her. What do they do then?

The could just choose to print the name of the Indignant Caller and the name of the Candidate. Unfortunately for the Trib, it seems unlikely the Indignant Caller has proof of law-breaking, which means they would be printing an unsubstantiated and unverified rumor, something they probably don’t really want to do.

We should note that we do have sympathy for the bind they are in. Mr. O’Callaghan had what was either a frustrating or funny phone call from someone who was basing their vote on the candidate’s strict accordance with off-leash laws. It probably seemed like it had all the makings for an interesting blog post.

But it’s now landed them between a rock and a hard place with no good options in front of them.

Which leads us back to what we said at the beginning: think long and hard before you press ‘Publish.’