I am still thoughtfully tugging on my beard as I follow the latest development in the continuing saga of HolyOffice and his alleged links to GetReligion and, well, me.
HolyOffice has spoken, over at his LiveJournal (or is it Live_Journal?) blog called The Medicine Box. However, in clearing up one mystery, he has created another. So without delay, here is the man himself in a post called “Can I put a ‘pseudo’ in front of my LJ handle?”
Apparently, someone got confused because I had Get Religion linked in my LJ profile box, and thought I was identifying myself as a Get Religion affiliate. I am not now, nor have I ever been, linked to the Get Religion Web site. I just really enjoy and read it a lot, and linked to it because I thought other people might be interested. Sorry for the confusion; the link has been removed.
As for getting credit for my work, I unfortunately have to remain anonymous, as I cover religion for a newspaper, and could get in hot water if the bosses knew I was writing this. If you’re really curious about my identity, though, just picture me looking like Brad Pitt, but more handsome.
Still, this makes me empathize even more than usual with the writer who called himself Dionysus the Areopagite, but has been dubbed by historians Pseudo-Dionysus. He just wanted to use a pen name! Is that such a crime that we have to label him a “pseudo”? Maybe he worked for a newspaper, too.
So what we have here is another side effect of the technological changes in our era, with the online world affecting life inside and outside many newsrooms (and other offices, too).
Some newspapers want reporters to blog and some do not. But what happens when a reporter who is writing hard news on the job suddenly evolves into a fountain of personal opinion online? This blurs the line, obviously, between news writing and editorial writing. When I was at the Rocky Mountain News, I was a reporter who was also a columnist — a combination of duties that existed on other beats, as well. The editor who hired me said he assigned journalists that kind of dual role if he thought they could handle it.
Now, in the age of blogging, all kinds of people are doing hard news reporting in print and opinion writing online. The Religion Newswriters Association offers a small collection of links to blogs by religion-beat reporters and by those who watch them — sites such as GetReligion and The Revealer.
The four writers here at GetReligion fall into two different categories. Doug LeBlanc (semi-retired from blogging at the moment) is a former mainstream religion writer who has worked in various publications and media roles, including advocacy work in the Anglican Communion wars. That’s why he tends to avoid Anglican issues on this blog or, if he does, goes out of his way to note his link to the story. I have, since 1991, been a professor who is also a columnist, working outside a newsroom. Nevertheless, I keep my Scripps Howard New Service editors briefed on what I’m up to in my academic work. As you can see in their bios, Daniel and Mollie are mainstream journalists who, in their newsroom jobs, work on beats that are not related to their GetReligion work. However, both have strong views about religion and about journalism and this blog is a place where they can say what they want to say. Again, however, their editors know what they’re doing.
What happens when a hard-news beat reporter also has a blog on the same topic? You can see that happening across the pond, where religion-beat veteran Ruth Gledhill of The Times — producing a European brand of journalism — writes waves of news stories about the Anglican Communion and then, elsewhere, writes about her own connections to the stories that she is writing. When is she a reporter and when is she a columnist? In the European model of the press, that is not as big of an issue (unless sources on one side of a story ignore you). Yes, editors make the final call.
Meanwhile, HolyOffice says he is a mainstream religion writer (who looks like Brad Pitt) who has an anonymous blog. Personally, I don’t think there is any need for anyone to try to “out” him. It also appears that his blog already has some GetReligion readers. Hurrah. We hope they keep visiting this site and letting us know what they think.
Our goal, from the beginning, has been to produce a blog for journalists who cover the religion beat or who are interested in writing about religion news as part of their other work in journalism. This is an advocacy site for improved religion coverage in the mainstream press, with our primary emphasis being on accurate hard-news reporting. The four of us openly discuss our own beliefs here, for the sake of clarity, but we strive to keep the emphasis on journalism.
We welcome feedback from journalists and people who love journalism. We are anxious to add new information and to make corrections, when we make mistakes.
I will end with this note to HolyOffice: Feel free to restore the GetReligion link to your online profile. We appreciate the support. Thanks for reading, and please keep writing. You are, as Southerners would say, funny as all get out.
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Comments (10) |
June 1, 2006, at 9:31 am
I too have a link to GetReligion on my blog, but I don’t think anyone believes I’m affiliated with GetReligion (other than being a friend of Doug LeBlanc) or even that I agree with all of what is written at GetReligion. But just to clear things up, let me issue the following statement:
I am not now, nor have I ever been, affiliated with the GetReligion web site. I just really enjoy and read it a lot, and linked to it because I thought other people might be interested. If you’re really curious about my identity, though, just picture me looking like Philip Seymour Hoffman, as he appears in “Mission Impossible 3,” NOT as he appears in “Capote.”
June 1, 2006, at 10:29 am
Holy Office writes on his blog that he remains anonymous because his editors would say he can’t cover issues on which he’s expressed his opinions.
He accepts that but says, “Personally, I think it’s possible to maintain a set of opinions about something and still cover it fairly (the sharp disapproval my reporting has met from some Catholic authorities is a good example), but the appearance is generally what counts.”
I just want to second this. Some of my most liberal colleagues — who have extreme views on a given subject — are able to cover said subject fairly. It is possible and has everything to do with knowing when your private opinion is warranted and when you simply have to do your job as a reporter.
June 1, 2006, at 10:54 am
Mollie, I assume your boss knows you blog. I’m curious how that conversation went with your bosses and how the yfeel about your blogging during the work day. The fact that you don’t blog about what you cover probably helps.
I write about workplace issues and the law and am curious how bloggers who are full-time journalists deal with this.
June 1, 2006, at 11:17 am
Let me say “amen” to Mollie’s note and, while I am at it, urge people — again — to read “The Elements of Journalism” for a discussion of where the “objectivity” language came from in the first place.
It was never meant as a philosophical statement about the mind of the individual journalist. It’s about the method pursued by the news organization and its committment to a product that deals with information as accurately as possible while treating sources fairly.
I never use the word “objectivity” for that reason. The next thing you know you’re counting angels on the heads of ball-point pens. I am more interested in what readers and sources think of the product that is published.
June 1, 2006, at 3:37 pm
I was interested in a point that tmatt made:
“But what happens when a reporter who is writing hard news on the job suddenly evolves into a fountain of personal opinion online? This blurs the line, obviously, between news writing and editorial writing.”
Does that ever happen in reverse? I mean, did you ever know or hear about a columnist who thought he/she was a hard news reporter? Who forgot that he/she was basically writing about ‘I like two spoons of sugar in my tea but some people like three, or one, or none - and that’s (a) an abomination before the Lord!/(b) okay too’ (depending on viewpoint), and suddenly started to think that what they were writing about was serious news because it got printed in a paper besides the ‘Small Earthquake: Not Many Dead’ headlines?
I don’t just mean religion, I mean on any subject. I ask, because I get the impression from reading some columnists (in newspapers on this side of the pond) that they really do think of themselves as crusading journalists exposing the sordid underbelly of corruption when really all they are doing is going ‘Oooh - that bloke there takes three sugars in his tea!’
June 1, 2006, at 3:39 pm
Hi thank you for mentioning my blog. To answer your question, I hope it is clear that I am being subjective on my blog (at times, not always) and objective in newsreporting. Sometimes ‘comment’ appears in the main paper, but even that should be objective. I don’t think readers find it confusing, rather they seem to like the opportunity to call me to account. But if I hadn’t been asked (repeatedly) by people at The Times to do one, I don’t think I would have started one under my own auspices, for all the reasons you mention above. However, as I was asked to do it I felt I should try and make it work. The other thing worth mentioning is that I’ve been at The Times 19 years anc covering religion for nearly all of that. I rarely have the chance to write op-ed, and while I’m never bored by the subject, it was a little restrictive just writing news all the time. There were things I so much wanted to say and there was nowhere to say them. I feel completely re-energised by blogging and am slightly addicted to it. I believe, and hope this is a true belief, that it is making me a better reporter because it is making me more accountable, making me think more deeply about what I am reporting and is also, in a strange way, making me more involved, more compassionate and as a result less prone to that great defect to which my profession can become subject, parasitism. Thank you again for this debate, now this site has been brought to my attention I’ll take care to read it regularly.
June 1, 2006, at 6:31 pm
Michael,
My supervisors know about my work for GetReligion. They know that I have an interest in religion reporting and consider this to be a great outlet for it.
But I tend to think of my newspaper and GetReligion activities as happening in separate time periods. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but I usually post my entries in the very early morning hours (when I’m not working). Having said that, i was working until 2:00 AM last night, so one never knows what are work hours and what are not.
I don’t write GetReligion posts when I’m at work, though. I may write them while at home but post them during normal work hours, however.
My supervisors are most concerned with whether I get the work done that they ask me to get done in a given day.
And yes, this has EVERYTHING to do with this area not being in my normal work duties.
However, I find a ton of great stories and sources for my newspaper by looking at blogs. So I find blogging in that sense to be a very helpful part of getting my job done.
Hope that helps!
June 1, 2006, at 10:25 pm
Thanks Mollie. That explains a lot. I use blogs in my reporting working all the time, so I can see how it could be very helpful … I’ve even used ideas I’ve read here for stories.
I’ve written a few times about bloggers getting at trouble at work and every week it seeks a reporter gets fired for blogging, so I was really curious.
Thanks
June 2, 2006, at 7:51 am
You can see that happening across the pond, where religion-beat veteran Ruth Gledhill of The Times — producing a European brand of journalism — writes waves of news stories about the Anglican Communion and then, elsewhere, writes about her own connections to the stories that she is writing.
Terry,
The columnist for the Church Times Giles Fraser speaks directly to your point today
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/80256FA1003E05C1/httpPublicPages/B4535293B89A85BB802571800030E27B?opendocument
June 5, 2006, at 7:25 am
Thank you again for this interesting debate, I’ve posted a comment at the end of my latest blog responding to Giles. Ruth.
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2006/06/gladwin_i_blame.html#more