A senior editor at The New Republic was suspended and his blog was shut down on Friday after revelations that he was involved in anonymously attacking readers who criticized his posts.
Lee Siegel, creator of the Lee Siegel on Culture blog for tnr.com, was suspended indefinitely from the magazine after a reader accused him of using a “sock puppet,” or Internet alias, to attack his critics in the comments section of his blog. An editor’s apology replaced the blog on the Web site, announcing that the blog would no longer be published and noting that The New Republic deeply regretted “misleading” its readers.
If you think this is limited to just Siegel at TNR, get a load of what Franklin Foer, the New Republic’s editor, had to say:
Mr. Foer said that as print publications engage the Internet, it can be difficult to clearly define and apply journalistic principles. “Obviously, this all happened in a newer medium where the rules are more ambiguous,” he said. “But we simply don’t tolerate the misleading of our readers.”
Why??? Dishonesty is dishonesty; why is that so "ambiguous" at TNR? What journalistic principles change from "paper" print to "monitor" print? I'm guessing reports at newspapers are now done on computers and sent to the printer. Where along the digital highway does Foer lose his journalistic principles?
Foer, that boat won't float.
In a similar vein, the Editor of Editor and Publisher, has yet to explain why, after descrepencies in his story were caught, he went back and changed a 3 year old story to make himself look better. I, and others, emailed several people at E and P and did not get a single reply.
What all this proves to me is, the media have been "ambiguous" with their "journalist principles" all along. It's just that now we have a new medium in which to expose it. Forced to fight back, instead of acting responsibly, the media fall back on old habits.
A shame really. The public deserve better and the media can provide better.
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