Crazyworld

In in the interest of full disclosure, yes, I am a reporter. Been one for nearly a decade now.

So I was pretty shocked while watching an online stream of the lastest so-called "media availability" held by embattled Gov. Mark Sanford today in Conway -- not far, incidentally, from where House Republicans are spending the weekend at a retreat where impeachment is almost certainly going to be a topic.

After speaking about transparency and openness, Sanford didn't take any questions. In fact, he blatantly told a reporter for The State newspaper, "I don't work for you."

It's hard to put personal feelings aside on this one. But I'll try.

Last I checked, reporters paid taxes and most, if not all, register to vote. They tend to take their civic responsibilities seriously.

Last I checked, many reporters were more informed about the processes of government than the average man on the street and, sometimes, even elected officials.

Last I checked, elected officials should look at EVERY reporter -- from the smallest weekly to the largest daily -- as virtually thousands of people rolled into one. People as in taxpayers, constituents, residents. It's a bit of advice I got from an editor at the first weekly I worked at after college. The Internet only exponentially increases a news organization's reach.

Last I checked, millions of people still rely on news organizations to not only report information, but to do so in the larger context of how that information is presented. (Sanford complained that The State reported on his current conflict, and not as much on the records his staff pulled on past administrations and even sitting lawmakers.)

Last I checked, newspapers still employee people in this state, pay taxes of their own and have to deal with travel budgets. Many of those travel budgets are shrinking or in some cases being eliminated -- and they are wasted when media outlets send reporters all over the state for press conferences in which the person speaking refuses to answer any questions.

Last I checked, Elected Office 101 taught elected officials never to pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrell. Or, today, has access to unlimited space online. Why? They'll never get the last word. Ever.

And, last I checked, every reporter is keenly aware that it's not always obvious ethical or other infractions that must be avoided -- it's the appearance of impropriety that can cost a someone his/her credibility.

Perhaps, governor, that last part is the most important lesson of all.

If you haven’t had to deal with this question yet — and still have more than a year or two left before you retire — then you will, and sooner than you’d probably like.

The blending of personal and professional life is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. And based on comments I’ve heard from people in a variety of other businesses, I’m not alone.

As a journalist, I have a few extra concerns, but we’ll get to those in a bit. Let’s talk about the general implications of this sweeping societal change first.

It can be gradual or abrupt, liberating or jarring, and either help facilitate your career or end it.

If you’re reading this — which, if you’re not a regular Herald-Journal/GoUpstate reader, you probably found through Twitter or a link on someone else’s blog — chances are you’ve heard horror stories about people losing their jobs because of a stray comment on a social networking site like Facebook. You’ve probably heard of college students cleaning up their online profiles or deleting them completely before looking for their first job. You may have your own experiences with someone you haven’t talked to in a decade or two tracking you down on a social networking site, posting a “Remember when...?” story and then had to offer an uncomfortable explanation of it to your colleagues.

But, you’ve hopefully also heard about people using social networking to find a new job, to build relationships with customers, clients or colleagues and perhaps even used blogging as a therapeutic tool to share your thoughts with anyone in the world who cares enough to listen.

This public-private dichotomy came up not too long ago during an interview with former Clemson University professor Mihaela Vorvoreanu -- who’s now at Purdue -- about research she had done on social norms she’d observed among a specific group of college students on Facebook,

“It’s becoming a major issue in society — one that I haven’t quite figured out yet,” she said. “Are you an employee 100 percent of the time? From a personal perspective, I don’t think most of us are paid enough to consider that. On the other hand, something you say …will be associated with your employer. So it’s hard to figure this out. But both sides have valid points.”

Olivier Blanchard also touched on this in my recent story about businesses using social media:

“Obviously, you want to be careful who speaks officially for your company — and those lines are getting blurred,” he said. “If I have a blog, and it’s not a company blog, but people know I work for company x, and I say something offensive… Even if I have a disclaimer, I’m probably going to get a call from human resources.”

Everything you post becomes part of your online identity.

So, even if you’re off the clock, you’re not. You’re a representative of your company -- or, rather, a potential representative. Your personal brand has become assimilated by the brand you work for. (More on this point in an upcoming post.) And the vulnerability an organization might feel in having its employees freely interacting on the world wild web comes with it.

Ideally, as the social web continues to grow and expand, old-school thinking at companies that could intimidate or otherwise limit a person’s ability to express themselves online will die out. If it doesn’t, the companies home to such thinking probably will.

In the meantime, Big Brother may not be looking over your shoulder, but the person who signs your paycheck may be. Companies have begun forming policies for using social media technology, but the more they try to muzzle their employees, the more likely they’ll get bitten in the process. If that’s not happening now, it will. Each successive generation is more and more acclimated to using the social web as a free forum for conversations. It’s only a matter of time before the iPhone generation outnumbers the Baby Boomers in the workforce. (That’s not to say there aren’t some very forward-thinking Baby Boomers online. I’m generalizing.)

And then, there’s me. Or rather, people like me.

Journalists. Reporters. Agents of the MSM.

Reporters, as you know, are supposed to always be objective. I know, I know. I can hear the laughter through the screen. But really, we try. And most real reporters do a good job of presenting an accurate portrayal of a situation. There’s an old saying in this business that if all sides are mad at you, then you did something right.

Well, as journalists, we should be aware of and attempting to make the best use of new channels of communication. After all, that’s what we’ve been trained to do: communicate.

But the blurring line between the public and the private is all the more dangerous for us.

On one hand, social media is a great way to build relationships with potential new readers and sources. I’ve done it for a while now — slowly but surely. But I can’t even begin to count the number of times someone has told me, “Don’t tweet that.” Don’t give someone a reason not to trust you. Don’t sacrifice your credibility. Those are all valid concerns.

Journalists have long had to divorce themselves from their personal feelings when covering a story. But now, with social media, it’s almost as if you have to divorce yourself from who you are every time you plug in. With so many people ready to blame the media -- ironically, most of this comes from politicians, or at least people who avidly follow politics, and from other members of the media -- you have to be extra careful.

It’s true even on “safe” topics: If I tweet that I’m listening to Phil Ochs, do I have to listen to Merle Haggard afterward and share that with the world, too?

I think -- I’m hopeful, actually -- that this industry, too, will one day accept that its biggest assets are the identities of the people working in it and evolve from the days of old. You can have an opinion about something and still cover it fairly. It’s just more and more, people expect to know that opinion up front. After all, we (the press) often demand such disclosures from anyone else who dares post content online. And sometimes, the best writing comes from people who wear their biases on their sleeves.

There’s already been some discussion of this, of “coming out from behind the byline.” But it’s pretty controversial right now.

Perhaps, though, for all facets of the communications industry, embracing the social web and using it to facilitate individuality is the most credible approach of all.

Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis stood in front of a verbal firing squad for more than 90 minutes tonight, trying to keep a lid on the fear and anger in the room enough to have a rational discussion about health care.

But in the end, things bubbled over.

I filed my story from the Upstate Family Resource Center in Boiling Springs well over an hour into the town hall, tweeting before, during and after writing it. I figured I had enough material.

The congressman, after all, already had affirmed his belief in the Second Amendment, not to mention the First, Fourth, Tenth and maybe another one or two. He’d reminded everyone that he was a Republican, not a Libertarian. He had tried to convince them he wasn’t pushing a secret plan to force everyone to get vaccinated against the swine flu. He said he didn’t believe health care was a right, but that a Judeo-Christian nation would see to it that people who needed emergency treatment got it. He talked about the need for everyone to have health insurance, because “free riders,” as they are called, cause medical costs to go up for the rest of us. He criticized the current health care bill for not specifically including language that would prohibit taxpayer-funded abortions, and put forth the belief that a public option would drive private providers out of the market. He had, after all, a 16-point list of reasons why he was against the very health care bill that much of the fervent crowd had come to voice their opposition to.

He even said, when asked, that he would opt out of the health insurance program he has by virtue of his office and “join the rest of us” if the current legislation passes.

But he wouldn’t sign an undated letter of resignation to be submitted in case he didn’t. That certainly raised some eyebrows: “Why not?”

So, after I hit my send button, a woman stands up and starts saying repeatedly that she’s afraid of President Obama. Inglis asks her why she’s afraid. And that’s when it started.

“He has too much power!”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Go home, Bob!”

It’s kind of a blur here. Inglis told people to turn off Glenn Beck. He told them to turn off the fear-mongering.

Thankfully, Inglis called me later tonight, on his way home from the “after party” where he met with a dozen or so local Republican precinct chairmen. Just to make sure, I asked him if he used the specific term “fear-mongering.”

“Probably,” Inglis said. “That’s what he does. That’s what Glenn Beck is all about. And Lou Dobbs. I’ve had the misfortune of listening to those shows a couple of times.”

The Beck comment was the last straw for what was left of the 350-plus people who had come to the town hall – the seventh of 12 Inglis is hosting.

Afterward, there was some discussion among the Democrats and less extreme Republicans -- I used the word “moderate” on Twitter, but not everyone agrees with that label -- that they felt too intimidated to speak up tonight.

Inglis said his staff members got a similar sentiment, as several people came up to talk one-on-one with someone from the congressman’s office on their way out.

The atmosphere of fear at the town hall was markedly different than the one on the street, Inglis said. He went door-to-door in a nearby neighborhood before the town hall. (He often does that.) He said that gives him “a more standard distribution of people.”

He tried to explain the difference between being fearful and being aware of problem in order to try to fix it. He said the fearful crowd was predominantly rooted in the Libertarian and Constitutional parties.

“The conservative Republicans there realize that the Constitution is stronger than any president. We have every reason to have faith in the institutions that hold the country together,” Inglis said.

“But when fear takes over and people start thinking the Constitution is not strong enough to meet the challenge of a president they don’t like, you end up with some fairly hysterical reactions.”

Since we were on the subject, I asked him more about Beck.

“I don’t listen often to Glenn Beck, but when I have, I’ve come away just so disappointed with the negativity… the ‘We’ve just gone to pot as a country,’ and ‘All is lost’ and ‘There is no hope.’ It’s not consistent with the America that I know. The America I know was founded by people who took tiny boats across a big ocean, and pushed west in tiny wagons, and landed on the moon. That’s the America I heard on the streets of Boiling Springs.”

He continued: “The America that Glenn Beck seems to see is a place where we all should be fearful, thinking that our best days are behind us. It sure does sell soap, but it sure does a disservice to America.”

Now, given that I’m a journalist, I have an interest in the way the media works and how people perceive it. Lord knows, I can’t tell you how many times people have come up to me to let me know what a liberal rag I work for – despite the fact that many people who actually read our paper’s editorial page call it one of, if not the most conservative in South Carolina. And that’s saying something. So maybe this was giving Inglis a soapbox, but I wanted to hear it.

“If Walter Cronkite said something like Glenn Beck said recently on the air, about the president being a racist, Cronkite would’ve been fired on the spot,” Inglis said. “But I guess the executives of these cable news shows are more enamored with the profits that come from selling this negative message than they are with undermining the faith of people in this wonderful constitutional republic.”

He continued: “There is every reason to oppose President Obama’s health care package. It’s the wrong prescription. It needs to be stopped. But that doesn’t mean we need to abandon hope in America, and say the end is near, and people are going to force us to have immunizations. There’s no reason to go to that extreme.”

I should point out that Inglis is facing a crowded slate of challengers in next year’s Republican primary. If any of those candidates want to call and talk about FOX, MSNBC, CNN, talk radio or even good old-fashioned newspapers, they have my number.

Anyway, Inglis made a couple of final points in our conversation. It was getting late, and I was missing The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. ;)

“This is a constitutional republic that can withstand any president I disagree with,” Inglis said. “It withstood Bill Clinton. And if you were a George Bush-hater, it withstood George Bush. And it will withstand Barack Obama. And that’s just because there’s such confidence in the Constitution and the framers, who set up such an incredible system of checks and balances. …It’s inspiring to me to think about that.”

“What you saw tonight was people who had been convinced of this negativism, and are detaching from the communities and institutions that hold us together,” Inglis told me. “And I believe in the importance of strong institutions. I’m not an anarchist. And I’m not a Libertarian. I believe in a strong, smart federal government that is able to meet challenges like 9/11, and figure out how to correct its mistakes from Katrina…”

He lost his signal. (He was, after all, on Highway 11.) He called back and we wrapped up.

“I hope to convince people that there’s every reason to be optimistic, and there is a way forward. And I hope to help position the Republican Party as the party that presents a message that America can fall in love with, rather than a message that would drive fear in order to win votes."

UPDATE (1:46 a.m.): While I was writing this, at least one video clip from the night surfaced. The audio is difficult to decipher, but the crowd's reaction speaks volumes. It sounds like Inglis says "Turn that silly thing off." I'm going on memory at this point, but this was after the "I'm afraid of Obama!" woman and after the congressman brought Glenn Beck into the mix. There were a few people recording, so maybe the whole bit will show up. If so, send me the link (jason.spencer@shj.com) and I'll post it here.

UPDATE (11:09 a.m.): Just found a longer video on Twitter (thanks to @innovator82 for providing the link) from the town hall. Now, keep in mind that this video has been spliced together by someone who obviously wants "Anybody But Bob" to hold this seat. But within the first minute, you can clearly hear Inglis' original comments about Beck -- and the reaction . You can also hear more of the woman who is afraid of Obama. Keep watching to hear some of the audience questions (taken at the beginning of the meeting) and Inglis' answers (from the end of it).

U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis is facing a fierce crowd tonight at a health care town hall in Boiling Springs. After several rounds of questions, he's going over the reasons he opposes the current health care bill. Couldn't find a link, so here's the 16 reasons his press office sent out earlier today.

What's below is straight from the press release.

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Reasons Rep. Bob Inglis opposes H.R. 3200

          o Inclusion of a public option competing with private insurers- lead to single payer system which will destroy choice and innovation, ultimately will ration by waiting
          o Taxpayer funded abortions could be provided – no exclusion language
          o Adds tax in a recession on individuals and small businesses
          o Job killer – Makes job creation more costly, rather than reducing cost
          o Does not address medical liability reform
          o Grows government
          o Creation of Insurance Exchange focuses on minimum benefits and mandates without incentive for innovation or specialization
          o No incentive for quality outcomes
          o Current private employer-offered plans will be driven into exchange program within five years
          o Public plan option will reimburse providers at Medicare-style negotiated rates which could be below private insurer rates- causing a major cost shift and undercut private insurers.
          o Adds entitlement program that will hamper recovery and add to the $32 trillion obligation of Medicare
          o Government mandate is the only way to control costs
          o Insufficient individual responsibility or choice
          o Insufficient reforms of Medicare and Medicaid
          o Expands Medicaid rather than transition those individuals to the private insurance to have ability to choose their own health plan
          o Inadequate incentive for healthy behaviors, prevention, and wellness from a patient and provider standpoint