Scott Rosenberg has a good post looking at a few topics; first the fallout from yet another live mike incident, second the feeling that there is a big difference between what journalists/columnists/politicians sometimes say or write, and what they really think. Live mike incidents tend to catch these; these are often called a Kinsley Gaffe. In this case, Scott notes:
Now, if Peggy Noonan wrote a column every week that was as honest with her readers as she is here, with her colleagues, when she thinks the microphone is off, I would read it religiously. She’s part of a world that I don’t inhabit. But now I have a bright picture of the fact that she’s not writing what she knows and believes.
I know columnists are people; they have relationships to protect; they want insiders to keep talking to them. Still: virtually every journalist in DC could go a lot farther down the road of writing what they know and think. Doing so would probably earn them more respect, and more readers, and the sources and players would end up talking to them anyway.
Peggy Noonan offers her point of view.
Mine is pretty simple.
1. Mikes are dangerous things. Got one on, assume it's live. Someone I know found this out the hard way in a restroom.
2. Have a client with a mike? See number one. :)
I disagree with Scott, by the way, at least in part. Yes, I think that *columnists* should write what they *think* based on their experiences, and they should lard that up with as much opinion as they like. Fun times will be had by all; this, I think, is what the best bloggers do as well. But I don't want journalists to tell me what they think, because in most cases they are not the experts. If they know something and don't tell the story to protect a relationship, that's a different problem.