Markos Moulitsas [Daily Kos] Refuses To Protect Girls’ Identities
Tommy Christopher
Mediaite
6/3/2011
Then, on Thursday, a blogger at DailyKos published a diary rife with wild speculation, and unfounded insinuations, including an unredacted version of Veronica’s Direct Messages to @Goatsred, which also contains Betty’s name. This is the problem with new media, an ignorance, or contempt, or simple disregard, for established journalistic practices. Redacting the names would have no effect on the item’s news value, and the message states they are high school girls, but the blogger either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.
When the girls’ parents became aware of this, they were very distressed, fearing for their children’s safety and privacy. I assured them that I would contact the blog’s proprietor, Markos Moulitsas (a father himself), and he would surely take it down, or redact their names.
The reality, though, was quite another story. When I contacted Moulitsas, he refused to call me, insisting upon email, which greatly hampered the amount of detail I could give him. The result was that he refused to redact their names, or make any changes, but the actual emails demonstrate a reprehensible lack of compassion or responsibility: (Warning: There is some very strong language)
VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:22 PM
subject VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minorsThey are sources of mine, and scared shitless, please call me. xxx-xxx-xxxx
from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:26 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minorsEmail me the info.
from Tommy Christopher tommy@mediaite.com
to dkos
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:29 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minorsThese are confidential sources. If you can’t call me, at least have this blog taken down, or redact the DM screenshot, including the names (redacted) and the name (redacted), and the girl’s picture. And any reference to those names in the comments or story
from Tommy Christopher tommy@mediaite.com
to dkos
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:58 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minorsPlease let me know what’s going on. I will be posting these girls’ story pretty soon, with proper protection. They just don’t want all these bread crumbs out there. They are 16 years old.
from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 10:34 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minorsThat’s a community member’s post. Not my staff. I don’t exert editorial control over what the community writes absent legal imperatives or deeply offensive material. Right now, I’m seeing neither.
I’m not sure I get why you want me to pull that. Those DMs appear relevant to the story. As I understand it, those two individuals injected themselves into a political smear effort, why should they be protected now?
Open to a counter argument that has nothing to do with protecting your source…
…It disgusts me to see any person behave this way, particularly a fellow liberal…
Read the entire post at Mediaite
H/T Weasel Zippers
At HotAir.com, No, Breitbart didn’t run fabricated “Weinergate” evidence
In the immediate aftermath of the so-called Weinergate exposure, the Left went on an offensive, accusing Andrew Breitbart of fabricating evidence to frame Anthony Weiner (Big Journalism broke the story). Thanks to Weiner’s public-relations disaster this week, this charge has largely been forgotten, as it’s pretty clear that the picture in question did appear on Weiner’s Twitter feed, and is at least arguably of Weiner, since Weiner seems at great pains to avoid a categorical denial of it. Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher — not exactly a fan of Breitbart — spent the week tracking down allegations of malfeasance by Breitbart, and comes to a surprising conclusion:
There are reasonable criticisms to be made of Andrew Breitbart regarding the Weinergate story (I have made many), and I haven’t seen every statement he’s made on Twitter or TV, so I cannot vouch for their fairness, but when it comes to the publication of factual evidence, Breitbart has acted responsibly throughout…
