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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Transparency and political blogs

Transparency is perhaps the most significant business and media issue of the decade. Following the uncovering of ethical lapses by everyone from Enron to Ketchum, the public—not to mention regulatory agencies—are demanding transparency. Even journalists appear willing to have their source material exposed to public scrutiny (see “Can PR Handle Transparency?”) And yet political bloggers on both sides of the fence seem to believe they can still get away with masking their identities in order to promote their personal political ideologies.

The latest case, reported by Howard Kurtz, involves Jeff Gannon, who writes for conservative Web sites such as Talon News and GOPUSA. Gannon attended a recent White House press conference where he asked President Bush how he could work with Senate Democratic leaders who “seem to have divorced themselves from reality.” Liberal bloggers made it their business to find out more about Gannon, who turns out to be James Dale Guckert, who “has been linked to online domain addresses with sexually provocative names,” according to Kurtz’s report.

The revelation prompted Guckert to resign from his reporting jobs. Kurtz (who defended Guckert’s right to scribe under a pen name on CNN) writes,

Gannon’s resignation highlights the no-holds-barred atmosphere of the Web, which both enabled him to function as a reporter—his stories appeared on a site founded by Texas Republican activist Bobby Eberle—and produced a swarm of critics determined to expose him.

While the volunteer corps of bloggers dedicated to their own agendas may have hastened Guckert’s downfall, I’m not convinced that the the “no-holds-barred atmosphere of the Web” has as much to do with it as the growing expectation of transparency that is characterized by such legislation as Sarbanes-Oxley, which has nothing to do with the Web.

Guckert’s isn’t the first such case. Bloggers on both sides of the fence have been revealed as paid representatives of the candidates about whom they blogged so gushingly. Anyone who thinks they can hide behind a non de plume in order to advance their cause needs to understand that he’s part of the same world in which journalists and businesses live. There are no secrets any more.

02/11/05 | 0 Comments | Transparency and political blogs

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