E-Media Tidbits

Woe be the reporter who misquotes a source -- or portrays a source's comments in a way that the interviewee disagrees with -- these days. That's sure to open up a can of worms.

Today's example: An atmospheric science professor at Colorado State University, who quit the Bush administration's science advisory team that's researching the causes of global warming, had some major issues with how New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin portrayed the reasons behind his decision. So he issued a retort to the Times article in the form of an open letter to the reporter, posted on his climate blog.

Professor Roger Pielke Sr. left the committee over a disagreement about views presented in a chapter for which he was the lead author. Revkin wrote in his lead paragraph that Pielke has "long disagreed with the dominant view that global warming stems mainly from human activity." That's outright wrong, Pielke says. (The debate is covered in an article in the Fort Collins Coloradoan.)

But the story doesn't end with Pielke's blog response. The professor also posted a blog item explaining in detail the reasons for his resignation from the panel, labeled as a "Summary for the Media."

Next, Revkin wrote a response to Pielke's criticism, which he told the professor it was OK to post on the climate blog. The reporter explained why he wrote what he did, and offered to publish a correction if indeed he was wrong. Pielke responded in another blog item, saying:

"I very much appreciate your comment as this clears up our misunderstanding. I had come to respect your over 20 years of excellent coverage of climate science, so I was surprised by this one article. This clearly was an unfortunate aberration resulting from miscommunication between both of us. I respect your professionalism for following up with your reply, as this demonstrates that you are an excellent journalist who admits mistakes and corrects them. ... Your response to my post is very constructive to move us forward."

I don't know about you, but I find this public exchange quite remarkable -- though these days it's becoming more commonplace. The way we practice journalism has changed significantly when what in the past would have been a private exchange between an annoyed source and a reporter is part of the public record. This is the "transparency" that we so often talk about as being a hallmark of journalism in the Internet era.