Blogs and anonymity - another News conspiracy?

The Australian newspaper and its New Limited stablemates supported the conservative side of politics during the recent election campaign. Of this there can be no doubt.

Equally, the ABC and Fairfax Media supported the progressive side.

The progressives formed government. The conservatives did not.

Nothing has changed in the second, third and fourth estates for the past 300 years.

In a two-party system of democracy, one side will control the treasury benches, the other side will not, at least until the next electoral contest.

Unsurprisingly, journalism will continue to support one side or the other, either above the surface, as the Economist does globally, or submerged, as a blogger might anonymously.

Journalism has never been objective and it will never be, despite the yearnings of some on the progressive side for there to be a “balance”.

Consequently, a variety of partisan opinions have surfaced since News Limited published a story in The Australian on Monday “outing” an anonymous blogger.

The blogger - Grog’s Gamut revealed as Greg Jericho, a federal public servant - had remained anonymous for two years, tweeting and publishing to the point where it was claimed that he influenced ABC election coverage.

The journalist given space to reveal the identity of Mr Jericho was James Massola.

Publication of his revelation on Monday livened up The Australian end of the twitterverse, a politically moribund space since the end of the election campaign.

In its enthusiasm Twitter provided The Australian newspaper with additional space the following day to continue the yarn - using two interesting but time-worn angles.

Mr Massola offered a commentary on his earlier piece while his colleague Lara Sinclair wrote a straight up news story based on the “threatening and abusive” tweets that followed Mr Massola’s Monday piece.

Also on Tuesday, to support its journalists in their endeavours, the newspaper ran a short leader under the sub-heading “why should web writers escape scrutiny and responsibility?”

Indeed, this is a very good question and one which has been the subject of debate in the communication and media departments of universities for some time.

It is not, however, news, though the timing of The Australian’s coverage was important.

It coincided with a separate story that the Labor-Greens Coalition government had nicked the media “shield law” that had been proposed by the Liberal-National Coalition and were to table their own beefed-up version in the House next week.

The bill will offer protection for those who provide information to “employed” journalists and to the journalists themselves - it will not protect bloggers nor will it protect their sources.

The importance of the differentiation between sources attached to “employed” journalists and those attached to citizen journalists - many of us who contribute to On Line Opinion are citizen journalists and bloggers - should not be under-estimated.

Anonymity was once a vital component of publishing, even in democracies. A dissident writer in England in the early 18th century, for example, required anonymity when writing about certain issues to avoid a flogging, or worse. Fortunately for modern democratic societies the flogging is now confined to a bunch of trolls on Twitter unleashing invective if they disagree with an opinion.

Witness some in the twitterverse slagging out Mr Massola for his outing of Grog.

The question of the differentiation, however, remains alive.

It also raises other questions about the relationship of the old media paper/broadcast model and the new media online model of news gathering and news dissemination.

In its defence of Mr Massola, The Australian leader stated that Mr Jericho had injected himself into the political debate and was therefore “fair game” - the same as newspaper columnists and by-lined journalists are fair game.

Indeed, as Anne Lawson, director of Sirius Communication has observed, the more influential an anonymous contributor becomes, the more problematic the anonymity, as was the case with Grog influencing ABC policy.

Newspapers calling for bloggers to identify themselves makes the issue even more complex.

If there exists no check or balance on a blogger (as exists through a newspaper’s editorial process) how will they act?

Will they publish indiscriminately and irresponsibly in the belief that anonymity is itself a shield against prosecution?

Will they publish responsibly because they are underpinned by an individual but unidentified moral and ethical code of conduct?

Will they take responsibility for their actions in the same way that individual citizens are responsible for their own individual actions under the rule of law?

Probably not, given the whole reason for wanting to maintain anonymity is bound up in being able to do things that avoid proscription.

This does not translate into a belief that an anonymous blogger or Tweep is lawless.

But it does suggest the need for scrutiny and responsibility is as real on the web as it is on the page or in the airwaves.