Blogger-outing journo: Grog’s Gamut was tweeting during work time
James Massola, The Australian’s journalist who yesterday outed political blogger Grog’s Gamut, has defended his story, saying one of the issues was Greg Jericho being on Twitter during the working day.
Yesterday’s unmasking drew a major backlash against The Australian on Twitter.
This morning, Massola wrote:
“Jericho blogged as a hobby outside work hours. But he sent literally hundreds of partisan political tweets out, during work hours, many of which were ad hominem attacks on the side of politics he did not agree with.
“Is this, of itself, inexcusable? No. But nor is it appropriate. Jericho’s decision to “live blog” the Media 140 conference (was it a sick day, a day in lieu, annual leave, did he clear it with his supervisor?) made my mind up.”
Massola said that he hoped that Jericho would continue blogging.
Update: This morning, Jericho posted: “for the record I took a day’s annual leave to attend media140.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Three hours ago…
http://twitter.com/GrogsGamut/status/25721211345
GrogsGamut: for the record I took a day’s annual leave to attend media140
Mumbrella fails at fact checking by blindly reposting potentially defamatory material.
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Does Massola’s employer know he’s pursuing a second career as a human resources representative at D-SEWP&C?
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Hi Pete,
Now updated.
For what it’s worth, the stuff about conflict with the working day does strike me as something of a post-justification on James Massola’s part.
If he’d seen it as the key issue, presumably it would have featured in the original article, and he would have asked about whether it was a day’s holiday at the time he was seeking comment.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
From Mumbrella last year, the editorial director of News Limited:
“It’s our belief that journalists who work for us who have news to tell should do so through the vehicles they are employed to supply material for. We’re very uncomfortable with staff tweeting in a professional sense under their own names, for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which is legal protection and concern about what is published.”
https://mumbrella.com.au/news-ltd-editorial-boss-we-dont-like-our-journalists-using-twitter-7193
Sack James Massola for breakign company rules!
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It’s certainly adding evidence to the claim that JM’s article is ad hominem.
I’m conflicted about how much more we should contribute to the debate – if we are doing more damage to Grog by keeping the Oz article in news cycke – but then I don’t want us to back down as political bloggers or back down in support for Grog.
One potential positive is that Matthew Franklin has had less time writing for his paper – as he is currently fighting bloggers on twitter … during work time.
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I for one am proud of Massola and his single-handed pursuit of the key issue here. Someone saying something political on Twitter is at the heart of the current political discussion.
Bring on the paywall…
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New definition:
Public interest = whatever is in the journalist’s personal interest at the time.
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As I’ve been saying for sometime now: I’ll lay $100 that may objectivity is better than your objectivity.
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