Fowler: Bloggers on the Trail Must Adopt a "Code of the Road"
BY Nancy Scola | Monday, June 23 2008
A panel this afternoon on "The Rise of Semi-pro Journalism" featured NYU's Jay Rosen, conservative commentator Amy Holmes, and Mayhill Fowler. Fowler, you might know, is the OffTheBus contributor who has made news recently for two big scoops: capturing Barack Obama at an "off the record" fundraiser making comments about "bitter" Americans and Bill Clinton on a South Dakota ropeline tearing into Vanity Fair's Todd Purdham. So it was interesting to hear Fowler call for some agreement among bloggers about when reporters themselves can't be reported on.
During audience Q&A, the Media Bloggers Association's Bob Cox asked the panel to respond to the attempt by reporters during the Scooter Libby trial to tell bloggers covering the case that what happened in the media room at the U.S. court house stayed in the media room.
In response, Holmes, a frequent contributor on CNN, argued that reporters and public figures have an expectation that at some times and in some places -- cable show green rooms, for example, they're safe from the long reach of bloggers and have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Somewhat surprisingly, Fowler seemed to agree. "There's a some kind of 'code of the road,'" she said, among the way the traveling press corps understands when they're on "downtime" and not a fair target for reporting. And because press coverage of presidential campaigns is so important, Fowler argued, "I think bloggers need to agree to some sort of 'code of the road'" on what's considered backstage and private and on-stage and bloggable/reportable.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's interesting that Fowler -- who has gained notice for reportage from events where the on/off the record was definitely fuzzy -- is arguing that bloggers need to come to some agreement that acknowledges "offline" spaces for the press.