It's one thing to be objective and report the news. It's another to act as an intel source.
That said - here's a bright moment in the midst of the smoke and fear - from The Daily Mail Online:
It doesn't have to be a feel-good piece like Mile's Goslett's bit in The Mail to be good journalism, certainly. But the ethics of potentially providing real-time tactical data to the bad guys, which can (and there's no indicators here yet that it did in this instance) vastly complicate the job of the good guys, should certainly be a topic of discussion in newsrooms. Methinks the Heisenberg Principle applies - and journos can't just wash their hands of consequences.
Due to the nature of my work, I oft-times have info to hand before it hits the news. And aside from what it would cost me (I'm betting a lot more than the trivial price Sandy Berger paid for his betrayal of trust) I wouldn't/don't run with it - even after I see it "in the wild."
Not just from a good work ethic and respect for agreements I signed - but because it would help the bad guys. Which is why, I s'pose, I can't truly claim the title of journalist.
Oh well.
Keith Bradsher, a Times correspondent, sent The Lede updates from his BlackBerry as he watched a commando operation taking place at the Nariman House, home to the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad Lubavitch, and around Mumbai. The time stamps are London time (GMT). Mumbai is five and a half hours ahead of his timestamps. The most recent posts are at the top of this post.I understand the value of eyewitness accounts. I understand the news value (and business value) of "getting there first" but one wonders, in a day of Blackberrys and iPhones, etc, which, unlike perhaps regular televisions, terrorists may almost certainly (and certainly after this event, if they read The Lede) be carrying 'net-enabled comms devices... if this level of immediacy is truly useful to anyone *other* than the targeted terrorists? Even a half-hour's delay would be helpful, rather than real-time...
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 02:58:48There's useful tactical information here, for the bad guys. And someone like me, reading over Mr. Bradsher's digital shoulder, could easily be passing this information to the terrs, unless the Indians were jamming all likely wavelengths... which isn't likely, given the havoc it would wreak with their own comms. Hmmm. And before anyone points to this story about CNN - read the update about what may be a new urban myth.
I am on top of an apartment building facing Chabad house over two rooftops. A half dozen police marksmen in blue uniforms and helmets with their face shields down are watching the lower floors carefully, a couple of them with rifles at their shoulders. A small helicopter in military colors is flying tight circles overhead, apparently for observation, as it has no visible guns. There was scattered shooting audible to the crowd a few minutes ago but now Chabad house is silent.
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 03:32:15
At least five commandos are on the rooftop balcony of Nariman House, trying to look over the row of small red flowerpots at the side of the building. The police marksmen atop an aging, yellow building across the street are also trying to look down. The walls of the Nariman House were once white but are now stained light gray by years of smog.
That said - here's a bright moment in the midst of the smoke and fear - from The Daily Mail Online:
I was extremely lucky. I was with a very good bunch of people. Three or four of us were Brits. There were some Irish as well. Most were Indian.And good service is hard to find, and to be treasured when it is. It's good to know that somewhere, somewhen, there is still a little Victorian Bulldog in the Brits. H/t, Sean M.
'We’d never met each other but I have to say, it was a true British stiff upper-lip situation. Together, the Brits helped to keep up morale.
‘There was a can-do attitude. We thought, 'Let’s get the barricades done, let’s do the practical things rather than sit there like sheep and wait to meet our fate.'
‘There was a lot of crying from many of the other people and I suppose comforting them was a way of keeping ourselves occupied. My boss Christopher Garnett and some old friends were sending me messages to keep my spirits up.
‘At one stage Christopher sent me some stanzas from The Private Of The Buffs [a ballad by Sir Francis Hastings Doyle describing the execution of a captured British infantryman for refusing to kowtow to the Chinese in 1860].’
Nick added: ‘We all decided that even though we had alcohol within reach we wouldn’t touch it because it seemed like a bad idea to get drunk.
‘But come 5am, we were fairly confident the police were going to get us out, so I marched over to the bar and found a bottle of vintage Cristal champagne and opened it and began pouring it into glasses.
‘Then the head waiter came rushing across to me and said, “No, no, you can’t do that!” and I said, 'Well we’re going to' and he said, 'No sir, those are the wrong type of glasses. I shall find you champagne flutes.'
'And he did. The service was immaculate.
It doesn't have to be a feel-good piece like Mile's Goslett's bit in The Mail to be good journalism, certainly. But the ethics of potentially providing real-time tactical data to the bad guys, which can (and there's no indicators here yet that it did in this instance) vastly complicate the job of the good guys, should certainly be a topic of discussion in newsrooms. Methinks the Heisenberg Principle applies - and journos can't just wash their hands of consequences.
Due to the nature of my work, I oft-times have info to hand before it hits the news. And aside from what it would cost me (I'm betting a lot more than the trivial price Sandy Berger paid for his betrayal of trust) I wouldn't/don't run with it - even after I see it "in the wild."
Not just from a good work ethic and respect for agreements I signed - but because it would help the bad guys. Which is why, I s'pose, I can't truly claim the title of journalist.
Oh well.
Today I learnt that Emmah in Hebrew, means Mommy.
One of the things that I think about is that someone would have to learn where to go get the info from a blog. Now, as part of this community, we use it regularly and have an idea, plus info gets sent to big blogs and discovered pretty quickly. But, does it mean that everybody has some responsibility? Not just the guy writing it, but others who link to it and help spread it?
In any case, I wonder if any approbrium from the blog community will have an impact? It seems like we have this conversation quite a bit. Does peer pressure work?
Let's talk about your post. You called it, "Good journalism vice dangerous journalism". First and fast journalism does not equal good journalism. If we look at this event with the journalist's objective of being fast and first, we may just find a dead journalist. Now, the wise journalist will have different objectives, they would be, "Accurate and Responsible". What does this mean? First, we need to think about the fact of the lens through which we observing this event. Yes, I'm talking about bias. There was an old saying, "I've got my mind made up, don't bother me with the facts". They need to develop a "recon mindset" of information gathering and realizing that absolutely everything they see is only one small piece in a very large mosaic.
As I look at this problem, I have this folder in my mind and my system, where I keep my thoughts on the issue. I neither reject nor embrace the different pieces of information, I just allow them to reside there until they actually reveal itself. I will then put them into a crucible for testing.
@Katherine Optima Maximae, if you were a sniper, you got your "One Shot, One Kill". You taught us that we have a responsibility with any information that comes before us. Sorry, I meant you raised a good question for all of us, not just the writer. Some writers would be terrified or even surprised who reads these blogs.
V/R Grumpy
In short a public works like a blog do need to be considered a risky place to put significant information. We all share a responsibility to our fellow citizens and even people of the world. That's something direly missing from many these days, a sense of civic responsibility.
Obviously civic responsibility can and does clash with the idea of news business in a case like this. Business is blind to civic responsibility, it's totally geared to financial responsibility so our only hope is to link financial responsibility with civic.
John understands civic responsibility quite well and for him it's even a little tied to financial and probably his sense of honour as well. He has admitted he could have blabbed about certain interesting details and perhaps he would have some great traffic to this blog and lots of interesting comments. But is this worth more harm to soldiers or civilians? Hardly, so he keeps the mouth shut.
There are times when one does have to reveal secrets despite what John may believe, which might be risky and actually harm people if they create a balancing good which does the opposite and more. This is not such a case. He was revealing silly details which were quite unecessary. So the question to a good journalist is what does this information do and is it worth revealing or supressing. Even a time delay can be sufficient. Not an easy judgement at times I'm sure but then how many good journalists are left? Business doesn't want those. They want emotion invoking people like those in MSNBC and that O'reilly fraud. Maybe that Michael dude is one of the good ones. We need a lot more than a handful though and that means us as citizens will have to want real news rather than emotional string pullers which frankly you can get in any crummy daytime soapie.
My wordy lordy yes. Most assuredly so. In the general sense but in bloggerland it perhaps depends on the personal linkages of the blogger. I doubt conservative bloggers could influence liberal ones and vice versa because it's not really a peer then, is it?
Worth a go though I think, the other forms of pressure will be slow going. We also need to think about this long term. This problem isn't going to be one-of, it's going to repeat quite often and there has to be some effort put into dealing with it.
That's passing immediate tactical information for no other reason than to give the report a flavor of authenticity.