The Cleveland Plain Dealer admitted today that it’s companion site, Cleveland.com, unveiled the identity of an anonymous poster which in turn exposed a potential conflict of interest for a local judge. Some of the anonymous posts referenced cases covered by the judge. According to the Plain Dealer, it was the judge’s daughter who used her mother’s email address to set up her anonymous account on Cleveland.com.
Both the paper and the site are touting the deliberate privacy violation as an “ethical debate”.
There isn’t a debate at all. Regardless of the seediness of a judge’s daughter commenting on mom’s court cases (if that is all it really was), The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com had no business at all investigating who is posting comments on the site unless there is a compelling legal reason to do so. While it might make for an interesting story in the paper, there was no public interest or compelling legal reason to disclose the anonymous poster.
Still, this from Plain Dealer Editor Susan Goldberg:
“You can argue we should not have uncovered lawmiss’ identity,” Goldberg said in an interview, “and maybe we shouldn’t have. But once we did, I don’t know how you can pretend you don’t know that information. How can you put that genie back in the bottle?
This is an unbelievably dumb comment from a newspaper editor who understands all too well that journalists regularly expect anonymity for their sources. No, the paper shouldn’t have investigated who is leaving anonymous posts… and no, the only “genie in the bottle” is one that the paper created. Justifying it this way is a nonsensical, circular argument. Compounding this failure is Goldberg herself: she is a newspaper veteran from San Jose and knows the technology universe all too well from covering Silicon Valley. It’s hard to believe she of all people doesn’t understand the intersection between technology, privacy and journalism.
It’s also commercial suicide.
Newspapers are struggling to transition their business to the online universe where building a community is paramount to their success. Building that community entails trust that is built between the site and the participants of the site. The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com willfully violated that trust.
