By Cecilia M. Vega
San Francisco Chronicle
Published: 2/1/2007
Excerpt:
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's chief spokesman Peter Ragone admitted Wednesday to posting comments on local news-oriented Web sites using the identity of other people.
Ragone had denied using fake names to defend Newsom in online discussions at SFist and other Web sites, insisting the comments were those of the named author, John Nelson, a close personal friend. ...
... Suspicion began to center on the blog postings last week after SFist identified the Internet Protocol address for a home computer that Ragone had been using to make comments under his own name.
Editors at the Web site checked to ensure that somebody wasn't impersonating Ragone -- but soon discovered similar comments had been posted from the same home computer but under other names and sometimes early in the morning before 8 a.m. ...
... Newsom's political opponents have equated Ragone's actions with Nixonian political dirty tricks and called for his dismissal. ...
...
Kelly McBride, a member of the ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute, a Florida journalism think tank, said posting under fake names on the Internet may not be illegal, but it is unethical.
"Anytime you're in a position of delivering information to the public as part of a service to the public, honesty and transparency are very important to your credibility," McBride said.
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