Brier Dudley Doesn’t Pretext
Brier Dudley is a journalist for the Seattle Times. He blogged a reply to my “Defending Dunn” piece.
He says, “I’ve never heard of any reporter using pretexting. It’s a slimy tactic and the information gained wouldn’t be worth the effort and ethical taint. A list of phone calls may be useful to a corporate leak investigation or a prosecutor, but reporters want to know what was said and why.”
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I posted a reply to his blog’s moderation queue a few days ago, but it hasn’t been approved. So I’m posting it here for posterity:
Thanks Brier; I hope readers to my blog can detect a bit of dry sarcasm in my writing (e.g. the “bigger resumes” part), since that’s what I’m trying for.
Regarding the Dunn thing, I think the “prove” comment came across wrong. It sounds like I’m accusing journalists of pretexting, and that’s as ridiculous as accusing Dunn of pretexting.
When Dunn or a journalist talk to an information source who have access to phone records, they can never be sure if the phone records were obtained through pretexting, or through other means (such as dumpster diving). Note that Larry Ellison didn’t lose his job when he hired people to go through Microsoft garbage cans looking for records. As it is, even though pretexting is quickly becoming illegal, people’s phone records are still often obtainable in other ways, and journalists will continue to rely on sources who have information about phone calls.
The journalists jump on Dunn when she says “I didn’t know how the PI was getting the info”; but I think it’s a kind of misdirection. Pretexting was going on for several years; and nobody cared. The sheer immensity and scope of the phone-records stealing (and not just by pretexting) was staggering. It’s hard for me to imagine an investigative journalist who never profited from tainted information, simply because it was too widespread. Every single PI on the planet had accounts with these people. I give kudos to the journalists who first started breaking the stories earlier this year. But I wonder why nobody cared before? And I wonder why nobody is honest about the fact that much of the information is still available?
It honestly reminds me of the Newt Gingrich cellphone eavesdropping controversy. Everyone knew for 5 years that eavesdropping was going on. It’s only when the plebes found out about it, and a senator got hurt, that it suddenly became a big ethical problem. IMO, it was rather hypocritical.
As I’ve blogged several times, I think journalisms role is to shine the light on people who don’t want the light shining. And transparency is absolutely necessary for a free and civil society. So I feel investigative journalists have an important role and responsibility to “violate privacy for purposes of good.” I’ve been very consistent in that view.
So when journalists act like violating expectations of privacy is a “bad” thing across the board; I think it’s hypocritical. Illuminating stuff that powerful people would rather keep hidden is the JOB of an investigative journalist. I guess it’s things like this that make me doubt the press though. Like I said, the press didn’t get so excited when Ellison dumpster-dove for Microsoft records. The press didn’t get so excited every time a spouse hired a PI to get their ex’s phone records. We run very calm and civil articles on “industrial espionage” twice per year. It’s only when someone gets a reporter’s phone records that it’s a CRISIS!! Now the press circles the wagons, convinces a few people to take board positions elsewhere, everyone hems and haws about how privacy violation is bad — and tomorrow the press will be back to ignoring the elephant in the room.
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NYT today reporting that Hurd was a victim, he’s only a detail guy, how was he supposed to know what that crafty Dunn was doing?
September 26th, 2006 at 8:18 am
Privacy is chimera/myth/absurdity. Certainly not really worth exalting or even “defending”.
“Private” is most aptly used as a military grade because there is arguably no possible merit for it. In fact it might be the enemy.
An early start for it is worrying if our mother knows we masturbate!
At some level, as mentioned previously, we seek to hide things whose revelation will get us put in jail or worse but it would probably have been nice for those who lost people in the World Trade Center Towers to have at least had the choice of whether to shoot down hijacked planes killing hundreds vs. letting them demonstrate what many structural engineers already suspected about kerosene bombs weakening girders.
The chex/balances for Gossip Committees are their Webness and the near-unthinkability of a hierarchy thereof. Even the highest executive levels leak information about their own secrets!
One of my landmarks is the “information officer” for the Dugway Proving Grounds who, immediately after seeing film proving that they had just gassed a flock of sheep on a nearby ranch, hosted a news conference saying “not us!”
Love.
September 27th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Yikes, not sure why you couldn’t post a reply, I’m really glad to hear the feedback. I’ll post your reply myself.
I’m glad to hear you’re part of the dwindling crowd that appreciates the role of journalists.
It sounds like my comment was misunderstood.
Violating privacy sounds like a bad thing, but people give up privacy to participate in society. “News” often comes from the intersection of private lives with the community and public services - crime, politics, law, taxes, executive compensation, you name it. When you ask the fire department to put out a fire at your house, you’re giving up some privacy. In return, the public and journalists can monitor the performance of the department to be sure it’s using your taxes wisely, responding quickly, etc.
I fired up on your original post because it suggested that journalists use sleazy tactics like pretexting all the time. This is a sensitive subject now that prosecutors are going after journalists who expose wrongdoing.
My point was that journalists do not have to steal and lie to get the information they need, and it’s unlikely that “news” would come from illegally or fraudulently obtained phone bills (pretexting).
You’re right about journalists getting private information, but that’s not pretexting by journalists. The Washington Post won a Pulitzer for stories based in part on receipts for illegal lobbying expenses paid for by Jack Abramoff. The Post didn’t steal (pretext) to get those receipts; someone with access to the receipts provided them to air wrongdoing. Abramoff’s privacy was violated, but the harm he was causing the public was worse than his loss of privacy.
As for the press declaring a privacy crisis, that happened long before the HP flap - identity theft has been an A1 story for several years running.
I can drone on, but journalists talking about journalism get boring fast. If you’d like to dive into it, the industry’s equivalent of Slashdot is here: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45
September 28th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Yeah; it did sound like I was accusing journalists of pretexting, so I understand the reaction. FWIW, Poynter and Romanesko have been on my short list of “8 essential websites” linked from the home page of the blog for the past 5 years — one of the others is TOL.cz; which often covers press freedom in countries formerly behind the iron curtain. And then gnn.tv, since I appreciate the perspective. I lost the linklist when I ported to wordpress; I’ll bring it back soon.
October 31st, 2006 at 12:41 am
Yeah I second that; tol.cz really is a good website.
December 1st, 2006 at 10:46 am
[…] OK, we know that Brier doesn’t pretext, and neither does Scoble. I’m still trying to find out who I really am, but I don’t knowingly pretext. But the three of us being great people doesn’t change the fact that it happens — a LOT. […]