What did Peev say next?
Monday, March 10th, 2008Carrying on from Saturday’s post about the Scotsman’s ‘Monster’ story, Roy Greenslade has picked up on the debate and put forward a few more arguments surrounding the issue.
The Scotsman and Peev’s defence is that, as a rule, what is on and off the record is defined from the outset and allowing someone to retrospectively go “off the record” is like allowing someone to edit an article written about them. It’s a pretty fair point - if you let people go off the record in hindsight at what time do you draw the line? Must they make the claim immediately after comment, within an hour or just before the piece hits the printers?
Allowing someone to go off the record retrospectively does open that particular Pandora’s Box, but it’s an inescapable one in the real world as interviews do not tend to follow the rule-of-thumb that exists in ideal journalism.
As Greenslade points out, some interviewees tend to go on and off the record many times within a brief interview and trying to apply strict rules to that can be difficult. Often people will say ‘this is off the record’ and then proceed to make their comment before the journalist has time to agree or disagree; under the “rules” laid down by The Scotsman would not be counted as “official” either. In reality, laying down rigid rules in a very variable and unregulated situation like a conversation is pointless..
So again it comes back to the central point from before - whether Power was “officially” off the record it’s clear that she wanted to be and going against her wishes could do the journalist’s reputation damage in normal circumstances. If Power had been a regular contact, she’d likely never speak to Peev again. Peev asserted her right to quote Power as she has; I wonder if those she does speak to on a regular basis are as comfortable with the situation?
Most importantly, however, there’s a question that I’ve yet to see asked that could go some way to clarifying the whole situation:
What did Peev say next?
When Powers made a belated request to go off the record, did Peev say “no, sorry - too late”, “sure, no problem”, “eh, I’ll think about it”, “she’s a monster, eh? Tell me more” or nothing at all? If Peev really felt she was within her rights to quote Power’s comments as ‘on the record’, did she make it quite clear there and then or did she allow Power to think she was in the clear or still off the record?
As Peev has said - the tape was rolling so it was on the record; that counts for what she said to Power too.
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March 11th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
If an interviewee goes off the record *retrospectively* – even in the same breath – they are at the mercy – for lack of a better word – of the journalist.
Otherwise, any interviewee who has just realised they just let something slip can shout: “and that’s off the record!”
March 11th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
“If an interviewee goes off the record *retrospectively* – even in the same breath – they are at the mercy – for lack of a better word – of the journalist.
Otherwise, any interviewee who has just realised they just let something slip can shout: “and that’s off the record!””
I don’t know about that. There has to be an element of trust from both sides.
If someone says “But he’s been dipping his pen in the company ink for years now, between yourself and myself”, you have a duty to respect that.
If you don’t want to honour that, fine, but you won’t find yourself getting too many interviews in the future.
It’s completely different to receiving a phonecall three hours later to say “don’t print that line about x,y,z”.
There is no sacred rite that has to take place before an interviewee goes off the record. If they’ve said something that was fairly obviously between the two of you in the course of conversation, you can choose to follow it up or not, but in most cases it will be made clear whether or not they are happy for it to be printed or broadcast.
Saying “but you didn’t say it was off the record *before* you said it!” is childish.