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Misguided Buzz About Cleveland's Blog Scandal

I don't often find myself disagreeing with Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine for his views on the way things oughta be in the new media world. But his ongoing criticism of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland -- read it here, here, here and here -- is a bit off the mark.

First, the background: The newspaper made a bold and praiseworthy move this summer by opening a blog called Wide Open and paying four political bloggers, two Republicans and two Democrats, to contribute content to the site. Imagine that, old media curmudgeons not only welcoming new media rebels into their world but also paying them for their work.

Newspapers don't tend to take those kinds of risks, but the Plain Dealer did. It seemed to be working, too. But Wide Open took a seriously wrong turn only a few weeks after launch.

It turns out that one of the Democratic bloggers, Jeff Coryell, donated $100 to Bill O’Neill, the Democratic opponent of U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette, a Republican. LaTourette complained to the newspaper; the paper's editors were not happy and demanded that Coryell refrain from writing about LaTourette; Coryell refused and either "parted ways" or was fired, depending on who's talking; the other Democratic blogger promptly resigned; and The Plain Dealer then closed the politically lopsided Wide Open.

No one is without fault in this whole mess. The newspaper goofed by not making its ethical standards clear to Wide Open bloggers; Coryell erred by not disclosing his financial ties, however small, to a candidate he might have mentioned at some point; and LaTourette embarrassed himself by making a stink over a blogger's $100 donation.

But anyone who gets his information on this story from BuzzMachine -- or Daily Kos, MoJo Blog, MyDD, Politics & Technology, Right Angle Blog in Ohio and other blogs -- might be misled into thinking there are clear heroes (the wrongly maligned blogger and the blogosphere at large) and villains (old media editors and a petty politician).

That's too bad -- especially coming from Jarvis. The our-friends-can-do-no-wrong attitude is no surprise coming from political bloggers who defend their own at all costs, but Jarvis is an excellent media analyst and should be able to see that Coryell is not an innocent victim in this episode.

Jarvis is right to scold the newspaper for assuming that Coryell should have known better than to think he could donate money to a candidate whose rival might have been a subject of Coryell's blogging. Even some journalists don't grasp that political donations create at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.

But Coryell most certainly should have known that he needed to at least disclose the contribution -- first to his editors and then, if they decided to keep him as a blogger, to Wide Open readers. He is guilty of violating the one widely held ethical standard embraced by bloggers: transparency.

Jarvis needs to cut The Plain Dealer some slack. His tirade against Ted Diadiun, the newspaper's ombudsman, is particularly harsh. Yes, Diadiun's column about the Wide Open controversy is over the top, but that just means he, like Jarvis, would be a good blogger.

More to the point, the editors had their journalistic hearts in the right place; they realized the promise of media convergence and welcomed it instead of fearing it, as too many of their colleagues do.

Their experiment, not yet a complete failure because The Plain Dealer is working to resurrect Wide Open, is a sign of progress. Ethical concerns, not content restrictions, are at the heart of this controversy, and those can be overcome with more education in both directions -- newsroom to blogosphere and blogosphere to newsroom.

But they can't be overcome when smart men like Jarvis mercilessly badger and berate the few journalists who are willing to try something new. Keep that up and the curmudgeons most assuredly will continue seeing the media world through the green-tinted eyeshades of yore. Rather than charging forward, they will retreat into and fortify their ivory towers, and they will delay the inevitable, Internet-driven evolution of media.

(Read more coverage of Cleveland's blog scandal at the Poynter Institute and Editor & Publisher.)

CORRECTIONS: Jill Miller Zimon, the other blogger who quit Wide Open, corrected me in the comments. "I did not resign in sympathy," she said. "I resigned because I had the same conflict [political donations] and wasn't going to wait for them to offer me the same ultimatum." Coryell also noted in the comments that he never actually blogged about Bill O'Neill or LaTourette at Wide Open. He refused not to do so in the future, however, so my point on that score is still relevant.

That said, I have changed my phrasing in the two sections noted by Coryell and Zimon to address their valid points.

UPDATE: The debate continues at BuzzMachine and PressThink, where Jarvis and Jay Rosen respond to my post and those of other bloggers. It's also worth reading what Mark Potts has to say at Recovering Journalist.

Posted by Danny | 09:14 AM

Comments

Danny - thanks for writing about the situation, but please, email or call me, or Jeff. Or Jean Dubail at the PD. There are a few errors in this post:

1. You wrote, "More to the point, the editors had their journalistic hearts in the right place; they realized the promise of media convergence and welcomed it instead of fearing it, as too many of their colleagues do."

This is true of Jean Dubail, without question. He was our online editor. But no one else there, with whom I dealt, as the "other liberal blogger" (we never were called the Democrat or the Republican - we went by conservative or liberal, or right-leaning, left-leaning) embraced the project the way Jean did.

2. I gave money also - to Sherrod Brown and Marc Dann. No one came to me, or the other three bloggers, at the time that they went to Jeff, to tell us that the same was expected of us, period. I did not resign in sympathy - I resigned because I had the same conflict and wasn't going to wait for them to offer me the same ultimatum.

3. The online editor, Jean Dubail, knew of Jeff's activities as early as the last week of September. I can't tell you why there was any lag time between that moment and Oct. 30, for the PD to identify that we needed to be under the same rules as the newsroom staff or not blog. But the PD should explain that. I know that Jean didn't want the experiment to be torpedoed - maybe he knew Susan Goldberg wouldn't get it - but I don't know that. You should call and ask Jean.

5. To place bloggers under the same rules as the newsroom staff would dispense with the reasons why the project was created in the first place: to have writers who could write politically, and who were already established in the blogosphere, add a different style and different content to the PD's political coverage. Jeff Jarvis's point, as others have states too, is that the paper wants to look like it's changing, without changing.

Now, what do you think the answers might be to these questions:

1. Why didn't the PD come to all four of us to re-set the rules, but rather only went to one of us? Doesn't that seem odd and not in sincere furtherance of the ethics rule the PD says it must uphold?

2. If this ethics rule needed to be applied to us, why didn't HR or someone else in charge of the contracts vet us before even sending us a contract? Isn't it reasonable to assume that papers check out or do some vetting of every single newsroom staffer to make sure no similar issues exist?

3. If the mission of the project is accepted and valued, and admittedly political in nature, how is what we were doing any different from opeds or folks like Sean Hannity or Alan Colmes?

4. Why didn't they tell Jeff that disclosure would be adequate?

5. Finally - how does this episode fit in with all the other ethically questionable practices going on at newspapers: the Miami Herald and donating to Clinton and failing to disclose the fact that the reporter who attended an event was a reporter? On top of writing in a column that they reserve the right to keep doing this same thing? Or the fact that the Columbus Dispatch Assoc. publisher, Michael Curtin, gave $25,000 to the Vote No Casinos group last year? Curtin has been with the Dispatch for 34 years, many of them as a political reporter and editor?

Danny - Jean Dubail tried to do something really worthwhile. Our mission - the one he gave the four bloggers - was clear: we were engaged to continue to write as partisans. He'd been reading our blogs for at least two years (mine and Jeff's at least). He had back and forth with us for nearly two months before the site went live. He has been at the PD for years. I'm not the kind of person who feels comfortable saying that I'm 100% blameless in anything, anytime. That's just almost impossible.

But I am 100% confident here that the PD was in the power position at all times and if it's so in control of that ethics policy, then they either have unforgiveably poor HR and management (so that they missed a step in vetting us and telling us the expectation), or they aren't being honest about what's really going on on their end.

Finally, what if LaTourette had done what Jay Rosen suggested: get onto the Wide Open blog with a comment and reveal Jeff? Engage in some way in the dialogue, rather than call Brent Larkin, a longtime editor at the PD?

Danny, there are so many other ways this could have gone. Susan Goldberg picked the least best possible solution, if anyone wants us to believe that anyone besides Jean had their editorial hearts in the right places.

I know - I was there along the way - and before Susan Goldberg.

Jill Miller Zimon | 11.11.07 12:14 AM

Hi, Jill. Thanks for stopping by. I'll respond to each of your points:

1) I can't speak for the Cleveland PD, but I seriously doubt that Jean Dubail had carte blanche authority to create Wide Open. As a long-time journalist who has pushed innovations in the newsroom, I'd be surprised if the powers-that-be didn't have to sign on an idea like that. I'm also certain it wasn't an easy sell -- but the fact that Wide Open opened is a testament to the fact that the PD was willing to try something new when other papers won't.

2) My apologies for misstating why you resigned. I'll update the post ASAP. I was just summarizing PD's version of events in that case.

3) I don't know why there was a lag either, but it's not really relevant to the points I was trying to make in my post.

4) We'll have to disagree on this point. It's possible to create a blog like Wide Open without using bloggers who also like to contribute money to candidates. I currently have mixed feelings about whether bloggers should be held to the journalistic standard on political donations -- see my comment at BuzzMachine on Jeff Jarvis' latest post -- but not all bloggers donate money. And just as bloggers shouldn't have to embrace journalist ethical standards, newspapers shouldn't have to embrace those of bloggers. The idea of convergence is to find common ground.

5) The PD should have gone to all bloggers. Poor communication in both directions is what caused this experiment to blow up on the paper.

6) Yes, the paper should have vetted its bloggers and advised them of its ethical standards before any contracts were signed.

7) The difference obviously is the donation -- the PD wasn't comfortable with it. In my opinion, though, the editors should have told Jeff Coryell that if he wanted to continue donating to candidates, he would have to leave the blog. And if he wanted to continue writing, he would have to disclose the donation in posts about either LaTourette or his opponent. A post could have been written to explain to readers the lessons learned and the rules of the road going forward. That would have been a valuable exercise.

8) I'm not convinced that the PD would have considered disclosure adequate -- or that they should have -- but that certainly would have been an option.

9) Your line of logic about the ethics of the Miami Herald, a pretty common he-does-it-too response of bloggers when criticized by the media, doesn't hold water with me. The wrongs of old media -- and the things you describe are unethical my book -- don't make right the transgressions of new media.

10) We're in agreement on this point: "[T]here are so many other ways this could have gone. Susan Goldberg picked the least best possible solution." But we obviously disagree on whether only the PD is to blame for what transpired.

Danny Glover | 11.11.07 08:43 PM

"Coryell erred by not disclosing his financial ties, however small, to a candidate he covered;"

What do you mean, "covered"? I never wrote about LaTourette's opponent Bill O'Neill, or about LaTourette himself, on Wide Open. The idea of disclosing political activities and contributions was a topic of discussion between us bloggers and our editor from a day or two after we started (which is when LaTourette first complained), but since I hadn't actually written about LaTourette or his opponent on Wide Open the discussion was prospective and preliminary. Until October 30th, that is, when it was forgotten, and I was faced with promising never to write about LaTourette on Wide Open or being dismissed immediately. When LaTourette's complaint about my contribution reached the highest level at the Plain Dealer, transparency wasn't the issue, it was that the Plain Dealer didn't want to risk that I might criticize LaTourette while it was paying me. That was the bottom line, and it is not defensible. I was paid to advocate for my political opinions, not to "cover" the facts like a reporter. The comparison that makes sense is that we were like syndicated or guest op-ed writers, not like reporters. If I'm not mistaken the Plain Dealer has those already -- we were brought in to provide something different.

Jeff Coryell | 11.12.07 08:27 AM

Hi Danny - thanks - I will respond here and copy to my post as well. Just a little follow up:

1. Jean actually did speak about having free reign - that it was his baby so to speak. Again, you'd need to ask him just what that meant, but that was what was presented to us. Sure, I'm no dummy, I can imagine that he had to mean less than 100%, since he has a job too. But, again - you'd have to check with him. Seriously, we were really given the idea that there would be virtually no limits other than the ones the four bloggers defined.

2. Re: your number 4: It's true that not all bloggers give donations. I was a blogger who didn't give donations. But here's what's fascinating about blogging: It's been my activity in the blogosphere that moved me to donate. I'm not alone in that.

Another point about this restriction, however, is that if it's to be enforced for bloggers brought on by a traditional journalism outlet, then why bother? They can just use folks from their newsroom. Why recruit from bloggers who do give opinion?

That snark and bias was part of what Dubail wanted. So - to say that you could get bias and snark without donations, sure - you could. But why? There's no consistency in that.

I do like your idea that we need to find common ground, but I feel that we had found that in Wide Open - giving readers a full continuum of political coverage, from one source (cleveland.com/PD that is).

3. Re: your number 7: we're agreed that there are a lot of other ways objectives could have been met or communicated and weren't, but I'm not sure if I would have gone with what you suggest in #7. Maybe - I don't know. Again - all four of us should have been approached re: the re-setting the standard for us. Not doing it that way leaves Susan Goldberg open to serious questioning as to motivation - unless we believe she just made an egregious error, and I don't believe that, based on what I know right now. Could change, but I don't know.

4. Re: your #9 - I didn't write about the Miami Herald as a "they do it too so it's okay." I stay away from that logic as much as I can.

My purpose in mentioning the Herald was to say, "look how malieable this ethics standard is - how could the PD justify jettisoning the project, as well as someone who was following all the rules to which we'd agreed and were known at a minimum to Jean Dubail when another paper is embracing donations to campaigns in order to get access - and then be okay with the reporter not even disclosing that he's a reporter?"

The juxtaposition of the situations is what I observed.

5. As for accepting some of the blame for what transpired, I have to tell you, Danny - where was the burden on the four bloggers, to do...what exactly? We communicated with Jean Dubail constantly for weeks before we went live.

I even let a few folks like Amy Gahran know that this was coming down the pike - possibly Jay Rosen too - I don't recall. Wendy Hoke, formerly of SPJ was another.

Could I have pressed them more to tell me, what should I ask? what should I be sure happens/doesn't happen?

Yeah - why not.

But again - it's kind of David and Goliath, don't you think? The PD had the experience, the size and the desire to start this project and it was the one that later wanted to press the new rule. I feel strongly that the burden was solidly on them by that point.

So yes, we're going to disagree here - unless I've persuaded you at all...

Thanks.

Jill | 11.12.07 10:01 AM

Jill: The only burden on the Wide Open bloggers was advance disclosure/transparency, which is a widely held ethic of the blogosphere. If the PD were uncomfortable with what you disclosed (i.e., the donations), they could have sought other bloggers, revisited their own ethical standards and explained their decision to readers, or dropped the idea altogether if they decided Wide Open posed too much risk.

The burden on the PD was to have a conversation about its ethical lines before launch in order to avoid the scenario that unfolded after launch -- and not to overreact as it did once the perceived conflict became apparent (whenever that happened). And yes, the greater burden was on the PD; it was the newspaper's idea after all.

This whole experiment would have gone much better if both sides had communicated their ethical viewpoints in advance. The result might have been the PD changing its mind about the whole idea ... but that would have been better than launching it and then killing it.

But I still believe (or maybe I should say "hope") that some paper eventually will learn from Wide Open's experience and implement the idea more effectively. The PD could do it if it wanted to, but I don't expect that to happen. Too much pride appears to be in the way of that.

Danny Glover | 11.12.07 11:48 AM

Well - since we both seem to be lastworditis types, let me say this about that:

The issue of the bloggers having the burden of transparency: here's the thing - and I'm not defending it or using it as a defense per se, but it helps provide a truer sense of context: Jean Dubail had been reading at least two of the blogs for nearly two years and I think one of the two conservative blogs for a long time too. We know he was aware of the partisan nature of our writing - for one thing, it was why he asked us to participate, as opposed to any others.

I just don't have a good answer for why Jean didn't press us to disclose at some other level beyond what he wrote at the beginning of the blog.

However, on a case by case basis, we did all disclose different activities - I disclosed that I was writing about my state rep for whom I didn't vote and the others wrote about votes etc. So we weren't trying NOT to disclose or NOT be transparent.

Hindsight, 20/20 bla bla bla I know.

Thanks again.

Jill | 11.12.07 03:12 PM

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