On the Record... Off the Record... and blogging at the IOP
Steve McMahon, media advisor to the Dean Campaign, gave a talk at Lynn Sweet's IOP workshop at Harvard's Kennedy School on Thur. Feb 26.
Also presenting was long time political reporter Glenn Johnson, Boston Globe's person assigned to cover the Dean Campaign.
About five minutes into his presentation, McMahon asked Sweet to confirm that his talk was "off the record." Sweet, a political reporter for the Chicago Sun Times, and Glenn Johnson seemed a little taken aback by the request. Some Harvard staffers spoke up and said that the official policy was that all IOP talks were "off the record."
Johnson then indicated that if McMahon's presentation was "off the record," he would have to leave and that he was leaving in any case at 5pm to cover a Howard Dean speech in Conneticut. Sweet then brokered a deal whereby the meeting would be "on the record" until Johnson left and then toggle to "off the record.".
Now here's the confusing part, for me at least, since I'm not schooled in the nuances of "On/Off the Record," "For background only," "For Attribution," "Informed sources say...," yada, yada.
Other than Johnson, there were several other professional reporters in the room. There was another Globe reporter and at least two from the AP. When Johnson left around 5pm some of these reporters seemed obligated to leave but some stayed. Yo, professional journalists! What gives?
And here's another interesting twist. I know, based on pre-meeting chit chat, that some of the Harvard students blog these IOP meetings. It seems that blogging of classes (or journaling as the students call it), is a pretty well established practice for note sharing.
I wonder if the "powers that be at IOP" know about blogging? It seems to me that they have to address this squarely and issue some unambiguous guidelines. For example, "This meeting is off the record and therefore no blogging."
12:25:36 AM 
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