Revisiting Prior Blog "Journalists Should Follow the Rules--But with Understanding"
by John Aquino on 03/18/13
In a prior blog--"Journalists Should Follow the Rules--But with Understanding" (Oct. 5, 2012)--I recounted something that happened to me as a journalist. When a conference session was unexpectedly decalred "off then record"--I put down my pen, and I later wished that I had handled it differently.
To recap, in the elevator I ran into an association executive who was going to be on the panel in the next conference session, he seemed annoyed that the press had been invited, and when I entered the conference hall I saw the speaker, who was one of several on the panel, arguing with the moderator. The moderator announced that the session was "off the record," obviously responding to the demand of that one speaker. I put my pen down and folded my arms. When the event coordinators, who were hoping my story would give publicity to their new foundation, saw me not writing, they asked why and I told them, "Off the record means no record." The situation became ugly and I was accused of being to ridiculously faithful to mythic rules.
I had played by the rules, but years later I wondered if the smart thing to do, knowing that the "off the record" demand came from one speaker and not the others on the panel, would have been to take notes on the remarks of the other panelists and later ask them to put them back on the record. If they didn't want to I would have destroyed by notes. If they had put their remarks on the record, I would have had a story.
Last week, I found myself in a similar situation. Arguably the most prominent speaker in a session said, "We're all among friends and everything is off the record." I said, "Oh, gosh, it's happening again."
This time I kept taking notes. After the session I saw him and asked if he really meant "off the record." He said, "If you had heard my next sentence you would have heard me say, 'But that's ok because I would have said the same thing if it was on the record.'"
I responded, "That's fine, but you said everything was off the record and it's still off the record. For me to write up the story, I need you to put everything on the record."
He also seemed a little annoyed at my insistence on the magic words but finally agreed that everything was on the record. I made a note of the conversation, dated it and initialed it.
If a journalist publishes someone saying something that was off the record, it affects the integrity of the profession and destroys the trust between those who speak and those who report on what they speak. It is not a trivial matter, although it may seem so.
Anyway, I got to do it again.
Copyright 2013 John T. Aquino
