I’m actually feeling a bit sorry for LAT columnist Michael Hiltzik who is undergoing something of a “skimmity ride” (see Thomas Hardy) across the blogosphere and now the mainstream media. For those few who don’t know, the Pulitzer Prize winner was caught posting
on various blogs under fake screen identities excoriating his enemies (fancy talk for calling names). Of course, he isn’t alone in this slightly pathetic enterprise – it’s a fairly common occurrence (happens on here frequently enough). But it is surprising to see that someone with Hiltizk’s bona fides would think he could get away with this – we can trace your IP pretty easily, Michael, often even locate you on the map. It is, however, equally likely that Hiltzik knew this deep down and had the all-too-human desire to shoot himself in the foot (or in this case worse, since his reputation, unlike his foot, will never fully recover).
But why would he do this, Dr. Freud? Well, son, let’s leave the primal issues out of it for the moment. Maybe it’s closer to the surface. Maybe he simply knew that he was wrong and, like a schoolyard bully (threatened child), simply had to lash out. Otherwise, why call Cathy Seipp, in Howard Kurtz’s phraseology, a “tool” and “someone hampered by her own ignorance”? I know Cathy, and while she has her biases like everyone else, she is clearly as far from those accusations as anyone I can think of. But Hiltzik wasn’t thinking. He was lost in his own rage. Did he want to get caught? You decide. On Cathy’s site today, she says she has learned that the LAT is now looking into other signs of possible dishonesty by Hiltzik in the pages of the paper itself. As they say in France, à voir.
UPDATE: There’s a possible irony in all this too. It may be that blogging is more the big leagues than the mainstream media. In blogging, you’re out here on your own. It takes self-discipline that is not as necessary in mainstream venues where you are (sometimes) back-stopped by editors and by the “reputation” of your journal (diminishing though that may be). Perhaps Hiltzik, a relative newcomer to the online world, was simply in over his head.
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18 Comments
1. Mikey:Perhaps he never really had any self-discipline, that little voice in the head that says “No, don’t do that.” Perhaps all the discipline he had was external discipline, brought on by those editors, etc. Once he thought no one would know who did what, he let himself go.
Apr 21, 2006 - 10:51 am 2. Godzilla:Deep down, Hiltzik is a phony and a cheat. No one is perfect, so he got caught.
Apr 21, 2006 - 10:57 am 3. Kevin Peters:Roger:
Apr 21, 2006 - 11:16 am 4. Roger:Since we are speculating, I have never had any contact with him so this is pure spitballing, could it possibly be he thought he was slumming with common folk with his blog so standards went out the door. The L.A. Times, yes I read it everyday and have for the majority of my 46 years on earth, has a open disdain for the very notion of blogging and many of the writers think it is beneath their journalistic dignity. Hilzik may have had a “when your mixing with the natives it’s fun to try their dances” attitude.
Good point, Kevin. I think that’s an element.
Apr 21, 2006 - 11:20 am 5. Barbara Skolaut:“Perhaps Hiltzik, a relative newcomer to the online world, was simply in over his head.”
Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark. ;-p
Apr 21, 2006 - 11:31 am 6. jedrury:So do I get his right? The guy is a writer who flogs his enemies on the web under assumed names and the LA Times – for whom he works – is busting his chops. With all the major media scandals over these past few years [too numerous to detail], this is a offense resulting in being fired from the LA Times. What a joke.
This guy Jared Stern [NY Post] is deserving of real roasting and an indictment too. This is
an age in which our society re-defines common law crimes. Remember Bubba and Hillary in the 1990s redefining common law crimes like “assaults” as Federal offenses now known as violence against women because the Clintons were not trusting of the state courts [read Southern courts run by white red neck judges] to effectively prosecute them.
We now have this silly incident in which some poor writer gets his ticket pulled because he is blasting his enemies udner an assumed name.
Media ethics is an oxymoron.
Apr 21, 2006 - 11:41 am 7. Scott W. Somerville:Zing! You just made blog history, Roger… this is the first time I’ve heard anyone credibly suggest that good blogging might just be a little too difficult for those poor peons in the elite media (even the ones with Pulitzers).
Apr 21, 2006 - 12:13 pm 8. Rudersdorf:An old saying is “Character is what you do when you think nobody can see you.” Now we know about Mr. Hiltzik’s character. Would you buy a used car from this man?
Apr 21, 2006 - 12:13 pm 9. Kevin Peters:Jedury:
Stern is accussed of blackmail and may have broken a federal law. The courts will handle this case. The LAT has specific protocols regarding how Times writers can or can’t use false id’s when writing for the paper or other forms of media. So far, unless Hilziks denies what he has been accused of, he has violated the letter and the spirit of those internal rules.
The Times will decide whether or not to retain his services. They will have to judge what damage Hilzik has done to the integrity of their paper. One of the factors they will have to take into account is how Hilzik, once he was caught, responded to the charges. His last post on the blog was a lame defense where he tried to atttack Patterco for hypocrisy for attacking phoney id tags when he had made a specific point in his post that he had no problem with bloggers not using their names when blogging. His response was dishonest and a attempt to misrepresent what he did and what Patterico was charging him with.
In a nutshell Hilzik was trying to fool his readers by having conversations with himself and presenting them as multiple points of view. Fake but accurate. This is not a crime. But it is a major problem for any blog or newspaper that wants it’s readers to trust what is written on their screen or page.
Apr 21, 2006 - 12:51 pm 10. Knucklehead:This guy gets The Award
Apr 21, 2006 - 1:08 pm 11. Ron:The Democrats are going to have to do a house cleaning eventually or they will become the minority party forever. They have to get back to mainstream thinking or they are finished as a power in this country for no longer is the propaganda machines of the main stream media listened to with the reverence they once had; every one knows they are tools of the progressive/loony left and those with a modicum of intelligence looks elsewhere for truth. Give me a party of Zell Millers and Harry Trumans the party of my youth and I would consider a party change, give me a Democrat Party that I don’t have to worry if its patriotic. Give me a party that doesn’t see millions of illegals streaming across the border as potential voters rather than law breakers. Give me a party whose presidential candidates military history is still shrouded in mystery because he won’t release the records after more than a year from when he said that he would. I’m tired of the straight jacket of the Teacher’s Union and George Soros’s conniving, I’m tired of trying to figure out the real plan that they have for this country, the one they dare speak aloud.
Apr 21, 2006 - 1:09 pm 12. Godzilla:Considering the content of the last post on Hiltzik’s blog, I think his friends better put him on a suicide watch. In the real world, he has seriously damaged his one true identity.
Apr 21, 2006 - 1:29 pm 13. Godzilla:The link to Hiltzik’s blog.
Apr 21, 2006 - 1:30 pm 14. Mikey:Of course, what isn’t being said is that a man of his age and accomplishment had imaginary “friends”. Think about what that says about him.
And no, an Elwood Dowd reference does not help him because Harvey was real and Elwood wasn’t a jerk.
Apr 21, 2006 - 4:08 pm 15. Larry J:This is an example of why the Press is falling into such disfavor. How can I or anyone else read anything he has written and not believe that any “unnamed sources” were made up, too?
Apr 22, 2006 - 6:14 pm 16. Greg D:IMHO, the best part about this was his “reply” to Patterico. He writes a post that completely distorts what Patterico said, and then provides a link so that people can go and see how dishonest he’s been. This guy is a perfect demonstration of the dishonesty of the MSM. They’re used to being able to say whatever they want about someone, and for that someone not to be able to respond. The idea that the news consumers can go and get the facts, regardless of the distortions the MSM has imposed, just hasn’t penetrated their skulls.
Which is why they keep on getting their butts kicked.
Apr 22, 2006 - 6:36 pm 17. Kevin Peters:Roger:
How’s this for irony. Earlier this week in the USC Annenberg Online Journalism review Hiltzig had this to say when he was asked whether he had an editor for his blog- “I think essentially they trusted me to know where the limits were”
DOH!
Apr 22, 2006 - 6:48 pm 18. dchamil:I just want to say that dchamil has the most splendid, insightful, thoughtful, and remarkable comments that have ever appeared on the face of the internet. And that is my honest opinion.
Apr 22, 2006 - 7:53 pm