Last week, political reporter John Marelius penned a piece on the rise of political blogging in the San Diego Union Tribune that prominently featured the FlashReport. In that piece, Marelius pens a few paragraphs talking about "anonymous blogging" — here is the excerpt:
It’s a matter of credibility, they say.
“I’ve had about 20 instances where somebody has posted and I figured out they aren’t who they say they are and I deleted their access,” Fleischman said. “It’s a pain to do that, but I decided I wanted everything on my site to be attributed.”
Republican strategist Dan Schnur, a regular contributor to FlashReport, said attribution is the fundamental threshold of whether something in the blogosphere deserves to be taken seriously.
“Someone who posts to a blog anonymously is essentially a high-tech graffiti artist,” Schnur said. “If there is a user’s guide to blogs, rule No. 1 is if the blogger isn’t sharing his name, his opinions aren’t worth your attention.”
This part of the article prompted some very healthy debate on the topic of anonymous blogging and whether it is good or bad. Here on the FlashReport, one of FR’s Orange County Correspondents, Matt Cunningham, penned this critique of Schnur’s quotes, and over on the famously anonymous website the OC Blog, the mysterious Silence Dogood (who has taken the pen name that Benjamin Franklin anonymously used back in the day) posted this, and the mysterious webmaster of the site, Jubal, posted his (or her) thoughts on the matter.
John Marelius is a fine reporter, and over many years of his covering politics (including my own antics going back to YAF days) we have developed good friendship. That said, in this one part of his story, I think he did me a disservice. When he and I talked about the FlashReport, I told him that I prefer to have this website be "attributed" – which is to say that I strive hard to make sure that comments made on the site can be directly linked with the person who made them. That is my preferred way to do things here, but by no means does that mean that I have an inherent problem with non-attributed, or anonymous blogging.
Everyone who signs up for approval to comment on the FlashReport has to sign off on a disclaimer that I penned, part of which is excerpted here:
The FlashReport has a philosophy of ‘attributed contributions’ where you may choose to comment on a post, but we request that you register under your own name, and not a moniker or pseudonym. We would like to emphasize that we request no anonymous blogging on this site. If we suspect that you have used a false name to register, we reserve the right to delete your account. We would add that we believe that anonymous blogging plays an important role in the blogosphere, and there are many sites that allow or even encourage ‘unattributed posting’ — it’s just not what we prefer here.
There are definite pros and cons about anonymous blogging — and it really is about the responsibility shown by sites that support this kind of anonymous posting, as well as those who anonymously post. My favorite example of anonymous posting done right is, of course, the OC Blog site. It’s been around for a while now, and its "Blog Pen" of anonymous contributors was clearly carefully chosen. While I sometimes agree or disagree with the posts that they put up on the site, each of the site authors takes a responsible attitude when the write. Kudos also go to the OC Blog webmaster, Jubal, who tirelessly is willing to battle the scourge of the anonymous site — rude and obnoxious unknown commenters. Many, many folks post public comments to the site — it is a key component of the success of the OC Blog. That said, Jubal has told me that he has to wage a constant battle to delete posts that are less-than-professional. It is that responsibility, shown by the webmaster of an anonymous site, that is the key.
One of the huge plusses for anonymity in blogging is that there are many people out there that have important things to say or reveal that would not be put out there if there name had to be associated with it. Whether that person is an elected official, an aide to an officeholder or a prominent business executive, it is simply the case that anonymity combined with responsible posting can lead to a lot more free-flow of information.
I often-times will get some of my best information for use on the FlashReport from anonymous sources, both via e-mail and from what I am able to pick up on sites like the OC Blog.
So while this site remains ‘attributed’ by my choice (unlike Jubal, I do not have the time, energy and patience to police this place — though I applaud him (or her) for doing so on the OC Blog), the role of responsible anonymous blogging is important, and I support it.
So while I agree with FR’s State Capitol Correspondent Dan Schnur most of the time, I guess I would say that in this case, some of the time, "internet graffiti" is sometimes worth reading, and respecting – although a lot of time it is not.
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