November 13: Mayhill Fowler continued: Identification as an issue.

As I mentioned in the previous post, identifying oneself as a journalist is perhaps one of the first things – if not the first - that one should do upon the start of a conversation with a source that is meant to be utilized in an article. 

Mayhill Fowler appears to have an issue with this. 

She'd already had a previous mark on her record, with her failure to identify herself at an Obama campaign event where her recording of comments made by Obama nearly derailed his campaign. 

In an article published on Huffington Post, where Fowler writes for the Off the Bus project, she published remarks made by Clinton criticizing Vanity Fair reporter Todd Purdum. 

The quote from Clinton is incendiary and would have given Fowler a veritable platform for an interesting story, had she gone about it properly: ""[He's] sleazy," he said referring to Purdum. "He's a really dishonest reporter. And one of our guys talked to him . . . And I haven't read [the article]. But he told me there's five or six just blatant lies in there. But he's a real slimy guy." However, when she obtained this quote, Fowler failed to identify herself as a journalist. Clinton had no idea he was talking to a member of the press. It could be said that in today's technological world one must carefully consider each and everything they say to everyone, but does Fowler's method cross the ethical line? Getting the scoop is important, but the lines become blurred in situations like Fowler's. 

Identification and full disclosure are part and parcel of being a credible journalist, save for extreme and extenuating circumstances, which arguably Fowler's were not. Should she have identified herself as a member of the press? Does the fact that she failed to do so discredit her as a journalist?