Check the reports on contributions by owners and managers at other newspapers she’s worked at, or of the PD.

You will find plenty of them. Check her husband’s contributions.

Have fun Cleveland. This is only the start of a long reign of mediocrity.

Do you think we’re just jaded, or do you really think it really is as you say?

Thanks for commenting.

Even though I am a displaced person in Erie from CleveHts, I have been following this from afar.

IMO, it appears that the PD has the same problem that most dead-tree media have – they are in over their heads when it comes to the web and blogs. Most of these organizations really could care less about opinions expressed and got into the web as a means to increase their ad revenue.

They don’t understand the mentality of bloggers because they have lost their way when it comes to reporting the facts. If the PD would report a tenth of what is happening to and in this country, there would be mobs with pitchforks at the gates.

I think that this whole fiasco is just an excuse as someone internal to the PD realized that there are INFORMED opinions out there that they can’t control. And they don’t like that!

So far, the only people I see being smug and unethical are the PD and their defenders. Call me crazy, but when a contracting party changes the rules of an ongoing contract in mid-stream because a congressman complains about a $100 contribution, that’s a breach.

The unethical behavior here is on the part of the PD, asserting some standard of their own ethics trumps the contract, when that standard was not even important enough at the outset to merit a single effort to “discover” the offending behavior which precipitated the breach.

No one is attacking the press or the PD for bias, but for being completely untrustworthy in a contractual relationship based on the interference of outside parties.

Whatever world you are living in where such behavior is defensible, it is neither the real world nor one that a paper of the stature of the PD should be proud to inhabit. And my guess from your voluminous protestations to the contrary, is that you recognize the problem here, but for whatever reason feel compelled to defend the indefensible.

And — if you feel the urgent need to enhance your posts with Latin quotations — you should take care to conjugate properly.

FYI, I don’t work at the PD so there’s no reason for Mr. Diadiun to have coffee with me.

My interest in this “lowly event” is that I question the logic of noisily (and smugly, I should add) attacking the press for supposed bias, while at the same time condemning them for enforcing rules that are intended to prevent biased reporting from happening.

Also, I hope that when you write about how I shouldn’t be expending time and words on a matter I regard as silly, you’re not really trying to say that you don’t want feedback from the public.

I mean, is this a blog, or is it really only some kind of mutual admiration society — a digital clubhouse intended exclusively for Jill and her claque?

If that’s what it is, excuse me for butting in.

A little lawyer talk for you.

Res ipsa loquitor…the thing speaks for itself.

i.e. – if it’s such a non-event, why the hell are you commenting on a lowly, unethical, no-rules, preening blog in hundreds and hundreds of words over a period of two days in response to a bunch of other unethical, no-rules, preening commenters?

Perhaps you and Ted Diadiun could have a cup of coffee and discuss with the utmost professionalism and ethics.

1. I don’t think you and Jeff are heroes for resigning from the PD’s blog. I think it’s a non-event upon which too much hot air has been expended.

2. I have no idea what your plans for the future are. Why do people blog at all? What makes them think that anybody cares about their ideas? My point was simply that people who want to leave the door open for employment possibilities should avoid public hairpulls such as the one you and Jeff have involved yourselves in. Duking it out with the PD over an issue where they think there’s an ethical problem is not a good idea.

3. I agree that newspaper personnel should not be giving money to political candidates — or causes — because that has the appearance of being an endorsement, and it is part of a newspapers remit to retain its objectivity. An endorsement suggests the issue is closed. So I think it was unwise for Michael Curtin to donate to Vote No Casinos.

4. How did Goldberg “forget managerial decorum?” IMO, the blog thing was not well thought out. That’s pretty clear. The PD thought that, by revising the ground rules, it would be correcting something important that had been overlooked. The bloggers didn’t agree, and they left. What’s so dramatic about that? How is any of that as sinister as it’s now being painted?

To Mr. Blumer: One of the differences between bloggers and the press, is that when the press prints lurid speculation that turns out to be untrue, they get spanked for it, whereas bloggers have little or nothing to lose if they are incorrect. Some of the stuff that turns up in blogs really belongs on Snopes.

If you’re saying that newspapers shouldn’t print personal information about candidates (Edwards and his supposed affair, Bush and his cocaine use), I agree they shouldn’t do it if they haven’t nailed the facts. But the personal behaviors under discussion — drug use and infidelity — are regarded by many as character indicators. So, IMO, they belong in the dialogue — as long as there is more to these stories than whispering.

I don’t have any opinion about whether a newspaper’s union should support candidates. In general, I think unions should support candidates who are pro-labor. But journalists are in a peculiar position visavis endorsing candidates, and I agree that a newpaper union donating to a campaign raises questions.

As for the press scandals that you mention, don’t you think there’d have been a lot more of them if most journalists disregarded the rules? No matter how many rules there are, there will never be perfect compliance. Realistically, the goal is to come as close to perfect compliance as we can.

If reporters and editors feel threatened by bloggers, it’s not because we’re afraid of losing our jobs. It’s because bloggers tend to corrupt the mix by not respecting the boundary that separates speculation and propaganda from news.

That doesn’t even pass the stench test, let alone the smell test.

Speculation — Who gave legs to the tabloid trash about John Edwards having an affair? Answer: The LA Times.

Who attempted to bring Bush and cocaine to the top? Newsweek and several others.

I could go on and on.

Propaganda? Don’t get me started on Old Media reporting from Iraq vs. people like Michael Yon and the milbloggers. Remember Jamil Hussein? Fauxtography? The NY Times missing weapons that weren’t? The made-up Burning Six?

Closer to home: Jayon Blair? Dan Rather? Janet Cooke? Dateline’s rigged explosion? Food Lion?

And how about what doesn’t get reported, from county endorsement victories by underfunded challengers against supposedly untouchable incumbents, to the dubious background of an incoming imam, to the immigration status of people who commit crimes …. the list seems endless.

Journalists should be afraid of losing their jobs, because too many of them aren’t doing their jobs. The public has noticed, as newspaper circ has been dropping for years at a rate faster than the onset of technology alone would justify.

As to ethics: Ex-PDer Bill Sloat made an excellent point that a significant portion of Newspaper Guild/CWA dues are spent on Democratic candidates and liberal causes without a peep of objection that I know of from “objective” journalists. This is ethical?

Anne, the best among the bloggers, and that would include Jill, are at least as high on the SPJ ethical plane as the average journalist, and probably smarter, to boot — even if you “penalize” her for the “sin” of contributing to political candidates without mea culpa disclosures (disclosures that I would, FWIW, support).

Tom Blumer
BizzyBlog.com