Blurred ethical boundaries provide challenges for journalists and bloggers alike
I am no paragon of virture or saint when it comes to crossing the line from journalist to activist to blogger and back and forth. I have angered many a source and even a few friends, loved ones and roommates over the years when presented a potential story and deciding whether or not to run some confidential information given to me on the daily routine I may have had at that particular time and place. So keep in mind the following is not meant as a criticism of the people involved but more a conversation starter about what I see and how it may or may not be ethically flawed at the very least.
Blake Giles of the Oconee Enterprise newspaper is an accomplished journalist and editor with whom I have crossed paths for more than a few decades. I can recall having a rotisserie baseball fantasy draft run by him in the earliest days of the new Athens Banner-Herald building. I have seen him wear the black and white striped shirt at Georgia basketball games in some sort of officiating duty. I do not question his ability or professional standards, but I have to question his ethics on moderating a Republican sponsored debate and starting it by stating he was not there in his professional duties as a writer/editor for the Oconee Enterprise newspaper and then writing three stories about it in the following edition of the paper.
Admittedly he is well within his right to moderate the debate last week at the Watkinsville Community Center and if he had added the caveat that he was also writing a story or stories about it, I would have less to write about here. I know we are in a very small town where people where multiple hats in similar roles every day. I have appreciated the Enterprise's editorial judgment about Jay Hanley and his role as the Chair of the local Republican party, and not allowing him to essentially cover his own events.
I have no problem with Blake taking a photo of an event where he is working to run, and in no way am I condemning Giles for injecting any personal bias in his reporting, but it is the mere appearance on a potential of a conflict of interest should have been enough to alert the editorial machinery at the Enterprise to at least assign one of their other reporters to write a story about an event their managing editor was managing to ask the questions (and cover it too).
My only other complaint would have been to include the Democratic candidates in the event, but obviously I am partisan in favor of the Democrats locally, and we never invited or included Repubican candidates for Secretary of State back when we had our debate prior to the primary back when I was chair in 2006. So does that make me a hypocrite? Perhaps. Hindsight is 20-20, and the local GOP has never been one to invite Democratic candidates or embrace their ideas at their events. Although I have never been turned away at the door and was welcomed at their forum last Thursday.
I did have to suppress my considerable laughter at the opening question about whether or not Margaret Hale or Tammy Gilland were conservative Republican enough for Oconee County. In the previous 20 years I have been here, it was once equally fashionable to be a Democratic candidate here prior to 1994, and I imagine it will be once again in another generation or so.
My other ethical query evolves around a simmering feud between a couple of bloggers in the Athens arena and the involvement of a political consultancy and the apparent failure to disclose this fact when writing about that race.
Johnathan McGinty works for himself in a company called Front Porch Consulting and evidently works with hired political guns Martin Metheny and George Birchby in what they call Craft Strategy Group. Evidently they were hired and fired by Democratic House of Representatives candidate Holly Ward in her attempt at unseating longtime Democratic incumbent Keith Heard in district 114 in Clarke County (one of the last of the true blue stranglehold seats in the State of Georgia).
Dustin Baker is a blogger who runs Georgia Liberal and briefly flirted with running for Commissioner in Athens-Clarke County against Farley Jones for Doug Lowry's seat before Lowry decided not to emigrate to Canada and follow his mate.
Baker decided to give us an un-asked-for view of how the political sausage is made locally by dissecting Ward's latest campaign expenditures to reveal that the Craft Group was paid nearly $10,000.00 in her attempt at unseating Heard. A good chunk was spent on a website for Ward, which is pretty much standard operating procedure for any political campaign in this day and age except in South Carolina, which is one of the few tangible elements that Craft has imprinted on her campaign.
I am not going to praise or condemn either side in this inside the Athens perimeter pissing match. I am astonished that Craft could fetch nearly $10,000.00 in upfront fees from Ward and wondered what they pitched to her that they could do for that amount of money. I am equally surprised that she would have that much money to spend and evidently spend poorly, not to crap on the shoes of Messrs. McGinty, Methany and Birchby. The website built by Martin's neighbor is nothing spectacular but serves the function for a primary. I would suggest a professional photographer to shoot more "up front and personal" photos of Ward as an immediate prescription.
That is about three times what would be the going rate around here for full time political campaign professionals, at least compared to what I was paid in 2002 by the Doug Haines campaign in a losing attempt at re-election against Brian Kemp.
I would have spent that much on introductory mailers to known voters in the district or instead on quickie commercials or even videos on the web instead of hiring a firm to tell you to do that. But again, hindsight is 20/20, and the call where Ward evidently fired Craft could not have been very comfortable for either side.
Campaigns are never the same or easy to analyze in mid stream, and it takes a long time to heal the wounds of pride and avarice. I still maintain the "surprise" victory of Mayor Heidi Davison early in the summer of 2002 gave many of the same players in the Haines campaign a false sense of security that Sonny Perdue and Kemp ran into office in the first substantial statewide wins for the GOP in Georgia. Birchby was involved in the early stages of Bobby Saxon's ill-fated Congressional campaign in 2006 against Paul Broun, and much of the same political sniping was going on in the pages of many a Blake Aued article in the Athens Banner-Herald.
Baker has buried any hope for the local Democratic apparatus to assist him in any future campaigns with his blog posting today. Perhaps it is not too late for Ward to reverse the course of her seemingly floundering campaign against Heard, which has centered around the nearly decade old assertion that Heard does not live in the district but instead in his wife's house in Henry County. I would suggest any voters concerned about that to call him at his Athens telephone number or knock on his door to find out whether he is at home
I welcome any additional information or opinions about how these campaigns have or have not worked for you in the last few fevered days before the actual voting in the primary July 20. In the meantime, get down to AthFest and eat some Bar-B-Que at Harris Shoals and be damn sure to vote, whether in advance or on the Tuesday of the event itself.
Blake Giles of the Oconee Enterprise newspaper is an accomplished journalist and editor with whom I have crossed paths for more than a few decades. I can recall having a rotisserie baseball fantasy draft run by him in the earliest days of the new Athens Banner-Herald building. I have seen him wear the black and white striped shirt at Georgia basketball games in some sort of officiating duty. I do not question his ability or professional standards, but I have to question his ethics on moderating a Republican sponsored debate and starting it by stating he was not there in his professional duties as a writer/editor for the Oconee Enterprise newspaper and then writing three stories about it in the following edition of the paper.
Admittedly he is well within his right to moderate the debate last week at the Watkinsville Community Center and if he had added the caveat that he was also writing a story or stories about it, I would have less to write about here. I know we are in a very small town where people where multiple hats in similar roles every day. I have appreciated the Enterprise's editorial judgment about Jay Hanley and his role as the Chair of the local Republican party, and not allowing him to essentially cover his own events.
I have no problem with Blake taking a photo of an event where he is working to run, and in no way am I condemning Giles for injecting any personal bias in his reporting, but it is the mere appearance on a potential of a conflict of interest should have been enough to alert the editorial machinery at the Enterprise to at least assign one of their other reporters to write a story about an event their managing editor was managing to ask the questions (and cover it too).
My only other complaint would have been to include the Democratic candidates in the event, but obviously I am partisan in favor of the Democrats locally, and we never invited or included Repubican candidates for Secretary of State back when we had our debate prior to the primary back when I was chair in 2006. So does that make me a hypocrite? Perhaps. Hindsight is 20-20, and the local GOP has never been one to invite Democratic candidates or embrace their ideas at their events. Although I have never been turned away at the door and was welcomed at their forum last Thursday.
I did have to suppress my considerable laughter at the opening question about whether or not Margaret Hale or Tammy Gilland were conservative Republican enough for Oconee County. In the previous 20 years I have been here, it was once equally fashionable to be a Democratic candidate here prior to 1994, and I imagine it will be once again in another generation or so.
My other ethical query evolves around a simmering feud between a couple of bloggers in the Athens arena and the involvement of a political consultancy and the apparent failure to disclose this fact when writing about that race.
Johnathan McGinty works for himself in a company called Front Porch Consulting and evidently works with hired political guns Martin Metheny and George Birchby in what they call Craft Strategy Group. Evidently they were hired and fired by Democratic House of Representatives candidate Holly Ward in her attempt at unseating longtime Democratic incumbent Keith Heard in district 114 in Clarke County (one of the last of the true blue stranglehold seats in the State of Georgia).
Dustin Baker is a blogger who runs Georgia Liberal and briefly flirted with running for Commissioner in Athens-Clarke County against Farley Jones for Doug Lowry's seat before Lowry decided not to emigrate to Canada and follow his mate.
Baker decided to give us an un-asked-for view of how the political sausage is made locally by dissecting Ward's latest campaign expenditures to reveal that the Craft Group was paid nearly $10,000.00 in her attempt at unseating Heard. A good chunk was spent on a website for Ward, which is pretty much standard operating procedure for any political campaign in this day and age except in South Carolina, which is one of the few tangible elements that Craft has imprinted on her campaign.
I am not going to praise or condemn either side in this inside the Athens perimeter pissing match. I am astonished that Craft could fetch nearly $10,000.00 in upfront fees from Ward and wondered what they pitched to her that they could do for that amount of money. I am equally surprised that she would have that much money to spend and evidently spend poorly, not to crap on the shoes of Messrs. McGinty, Methany and Birchby. The website built by Martin's neighbor is nothing spectacular but serves the function for a primary. I would suggest a professional photographer to shoot more "up front and personal" photos of Ward as an immediate prescription.
That is about three times what would be the going rate around here for full time political campaign professionals, at least compared to what I was paid in 2002 by the Doug Haines campaign in a losing attempt at re-election against Brian Kemp.
I would have spent that much on introductory mailers to known voters in the district or instead on quickie commercials or even videos on the web instead of hiring a firm to tell you to do that. But again, hindsight is 20/20, and the call where Ward evidently fired Craft could not have been very comfortable for either side.
Campaigns are never the same or easy to analyze in mid stream, and it takes a long time to heal the wounds of pride and avarice. I still maintain the "surprise" victory of Mayor Heidi Davison early in the summer of 2002 gave many of the same players in the Haines campaign a false sense of security that Sonny Perdue and Kemp ran into office in the first substantial statewide wins for the GOP in Georgia. Birchby was involved in the early stages of Bobby Saxon's ill-fated Congressional campaign in 2006 against Paul Broun, and much of the same political sniping was going on in the pages of many a Blake Aued article in the Athens Banner-Herald.
Baker has buried any hope for the local Democratic apparatus to assist him in any future campaigns with his blog posting today. Perhaps it is not too late for Ward to reverse the course of her seemingly floundering campaign against Heard, which has centered around the nearly decade old assertion that Heard does not live in the district but instead in his wife's house in Henry County. I would suggest any voters concerned about that to call him at his Athens telephone number or knock on his door to find out whether he is at home
I welcome any additional information or opinions about how these campaigns have or have not worked for you in the last few fevered days before the actual voting in the primary July 20. In the meantime, get down to AthFest and eat some Bar-B-Que at Harris Shoals and be damn sure to vote, whether in advance or on the Tuesday of the event itself.
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