[SoftwarePatent]

"As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chance to respond.)"

There's a difference between "giving them the chance to respond" and what happened here. Being a journalist doesn't give someone an excuse to act outside the bounds of polite society.

[jleader]

I think there are 2 issues here: digging deep to try to get a response from _why, and publishing his real name and employer.

The first is debatable; exactly how much effort should a journalist put in to getting the story, particularly in a case where the subject didn't do anything wrong? Reading about the effort expended in this piece made me a little uncomfortable, but I don't know for sure whether I'd say it crossed the line.

The second issue, outing his identity, is more clear cut. The guy didn't want his identity revealed, hadn't done anything wrong, and is arguably not at this time a public figure; why not respect his wishes?

Publishing his name struck me as a vindictive way of punishing him for not responding to the requests for a statement.

I think the story would have been just as strong if the author hadn't mentioned his name or the exact city he lived in or the name of his employer. However, it would make the author's job harder next time she tries to get an interview if she doesn't have that punishment to hang over the next subject's head.

[tripzilch]

My thoughts exactly. I think the digging was okay though, for the simple reason that she backed off as soon as he said he wanted to be left alone. And I don't believe a journalist doing research has to interpret silence or no-response as such, but when he communicated this, she let him be.

The second issue was absolutely over the line. It's not so much the name (which is sort-of public knowledge, although the Wikipedia citing issue makes it problematic), but publishing the other personal information really crossed the line, and the article would have been much better without it.

I don't think it's vindictive though, rather a very stupid oversight.

I also think it's too bad that the top comment conflates these two issues, because I think it's very useful to draw the distinction. Spending effort to reach a subject for comment strikes me as proper journalistic research--publishing the PI gathered in the process however, absolutely is not. Even tabloid journalists would simply just publish the comment, but not the addresses or names of employers used in acquiring said comment (be it for different, more competitive reasons, but still).

[jleader]

OK, maybe not intentionally vindictive (only the reporter really knows her motivations for publishing the personal information), but it still bothers me that there's an incentive for the reporter to punish a non-cooperative subject as a way to motivate future subjects to be more cooperative, even if the she wasn't aware of it.

[goatforce5]

"Being a journalist doesn't give someone an excuse to act outside the bounds of polite society."

I thought we expected journalists to dig a bit deeper and not just take things at face value? Sometimes that means poking around when people might prefer you not to be.

[icebraining]

I think that's valid when there's a suspicion of a crime, or of an hypocrisy by a politician, because that's a damage to society and it's fair to have the person punished by it.

Doing the same to a person because she did someone good is essentially punishing good deeds.

[goatforce5]

"Doing the same to a person because she did someone good is essentially punishing good deeds."

I'm not sure a journalist trying to get in touch with you amounts to a punishment. The hypocritical politician probably doesn't find it much fun, but they're being given a chance to present their side of the story.

Note that, for example, in Australia the very first point of the Code of Ethics that Journalists sign up to says:

"1. Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis. Do your utmost to give a fair opportunity for reply."

Doing your utmost means not leaving one voicemail and hoping for the best. What if _why did have something to say, but his phone number had changed? I imagine that a reputable publication like Salon would have stopped trying to get in touch if he'd given a simple 'no comment' to any of their approaches.

(Also, define 'good'. Did a protestor who stopped the logging company from cutting down some trees do good for saving the environment, or was it bad he cost some jobs?)