Reporting in the Burghosphere, 2010

Pittsburgh City Paper Editor Chris Potter raises some interesting questions about the relationship between the news media and Pittsburgh's blogosphere during this week's "where's the mayor" controversy. I spent most of yesterday in Johnstown and wasn't present for the mayor's news conference. My observations here are intended to address Chris' blog post on the topic.

Tuesday I was using Twitter to report updates on John Murtha's funeral when JanePitt (Virginia Montanez) sent me the following question:

JanePitt: "Is Luke there? Heard a rumor he went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans today".

Note that I did not tell her the rumor to her-- she asked me about it-- at a time when it was already being discussed by the public on Twitter.

My response back via Twitter direct message was:

bobmayo: "did not see him at Murtha funeral. I've been hearing that rumor since last night. Doven denies. No 1sthand sightings yest or now"

(The syntax and spelling is a forced result of Twitter's 140 character limit.)

Reporters answer viewer and reader questions about news stories all of the time. If anyone -- not just the blogger formerly known as PittGirl -- asks me a question about a story I'm tweeting, I answer it. If they ask it in the public Twitter stream, I answer there -- but if they ask via Twitter direct message, I answer back the same way. Virginia Montanez may have characterized that as a "source" -- but it wasn't anonymous and I dealt in fact, not in rumor.

Though reporters were making inquiries about the mayor's whereabouts, it was City Council's concern about his availability to sign an extension of the snow emergency that made first made news on Tuesday. The tact taken by the mayor's office in order to "make a point" to the media appears to have fueled more reporter interest in getting to the facts. No mainstream media referenced "New Orleans" or "Mardi Gras" until the mayor made his own headlines with his chastising of reporters during the news conference.

I do enjoy reading Chris' work and listening to his Wednesday appearances with Lynn Cullen online. I'll have to download today's session via iTunes to hear if they discuss this topic.

Virginia Montanez, meanwhile, has moved on to again taking up the cause of the BRESMA orphans in Haiti.

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To PittGirl: Moving Forward

Someone recently said to me of PittGirl, "I know who she is!" I didn't even ask.

"You know, she said if her identity were ever revealed, she'd stop blogging", I answered. The person assured me of having no intention of going public with the suspected information.

We left it at that.

The sad farewell of PittGirl to the Burghosphere reminds me of the rumor I heard as a child; it was spreading on the playground of Saint Basil Elementary School in Carrick. "There is no Santa Claus" -- some of my classmates seemed to take a self-satisfied pleasure in the momentary power of their bearing this news.

I remember being struck far more, though, by fellow grade-schooler Chuck Rodatis' impressive rebuttal to those who spread doubt about how Santa got into everyone's homes. "He doesn't come down the chimney", said Chuck. "He has skeleton keys."

I look forward to the retconning of PittGirl's story line and hope for a reappearance of "Jane Pitt" in the new year.



[Additional PittGirl reading: Dennis Roddy in the PG; Woy of Have a Good Sandwich with the best roundup of Pittsburghers' reactions.]

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Dear PittGirl...

Here's my e-mail to PittGirl of The Burgh Blog fame,
in answer to her post this morning.

Dear PittGirl,

I appreciate your concern for the crime victim who I spoke with Thursday, but I promise you I didn't violate any understanding she and I had about doing that story. I care very much about how I treat the people I interview, and I assure you I'm not thoughtless--or worse--, as your post would suggest.

Some background: when I first spoke with her, it was without my photographer, who waited at the news truck. She discussed the entire incident with me in detail. While she was willing to let us record her voice, she did not want her face to appear on camera. I also asked specifically if she objected to our taking video of her car or or the sidewalk outside her home. She did not. To be clear, she did not ask me to withhold the name of her street, or to avoid showing it on camera. In fact, she even mentioned other details about the location during the taping which I didn't include in the story.

Take a look at the Pittsburgh Police news release below. You'll see that the police released further details about the block number in which she lives-- and that investigators also make the cross streets public. Why? Because they are seeking the public's cooperation to solve the crime. The street, block, and a cross street also appear in this PG article. (The police news release mistakenly says her baby is a girl; he's a boy.)

What about the words you quote from my report? "The woman says she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and in this case, the wrong place happened to be right in front of her home." That was a direct quote from what she chose to say while we videotaped the interview. Check out the audio clip at this link. Her words in this clip were broadcast in a later newscast.

People can choose not to be seen on camera for a variety of reasons, not all of them having to do with "witness protection". This was an composed, collected, 30-year-old woman who agreed to do the interview on terms which she chose and which I fully respected. Neither she nor the police were keeping the location secret. It was no mystery to the shooter. The car riddled with bullet holes was sitting there in plain view.



When the interview was over, I thanked the woman and complemented her for her bravery, both in how she handled the incident at the time and for discussing the details with me. I always treat crime and accident victims with the utmost respect. I often tell them "I'm asking you to talk with me, but you don't have to". It's true. They are not elected officials or public employees. They don't owe us one word. I've been doing this for 30 years, and I would never have violated that respect by betraying the conditions we agreed to in our interview.

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