Hiltzik Suspended

There's no schadefreude on my part about Mr. Hiltzik's predicament. What we bloggers thought was laughable, the LAT converted into an offense subject to discipline. Now they can feel morally correct and superior for enforcing their policy against pseudonymity while they still selectively report and slant stories to suit their bias. And Patterico (Patrick Frey) has no reason to feel bad about this. I have seen much more vehement back and forth on just about every site I have visited. I thought that was part of blogging. Everything is picked apart to the smallest detail. What happened to Mr. Hiltzik is the result of the attitude of the LAT and nothing else. I think that, basically, the LAT suits are not ready to blog yet. New York Times vs. Sullivan spoke about a marketplace of ideas. Don't stiffle speech. Let the audience walk from the speaker, argue with the speaker, pick at the speaker's every fault, throw rotten tomatoes at the speaker (well, maybe not the last). I criticized Mr. Hiltzik on my site. I allow open, uncensored, unmoderated comments. He could have come back and criticized my writing, poetry and taste in music if he wished. That is what I expected, not that his editors would silence him.

Anyone even vaguely aware of how journalists are supposed to behave should understand and applaud the Times' decision. This has nothing to do with "not being ready to blog" yet or suppressed speech. The issue is Hiltzik's dishonesty, bad judgment and petty anger at anyone who disagreed with him -- all of which undermined his credibility as a columnist.

Allowing a halfwitted far right idiot like Patrick Frey to bamboozle the LA Times shows how far you have fallen now that you've become the AAA farm club for Chicago's best litter-box liner/cage-bottom cover/toilet-paper substitute.

This semi-literate "pontificator" (check his blog name, he thinks it's cool to self-identify that way) has traditionally used anonymity - so long as it only applies to his fellow dwellers in the fever swamps of the far right. For this hypocrite to claim that somehow Michael Hiltzik has done something wrong by doing what the rest of his posters do, demonstrates his complete and total intellectual hypocrisy.

For you idiots to take this moron seriously proves I am right to have dropped my subscription to your litter-box liner when I heard you had done this.

Can anyone in your office find the zipper on their fly with both hands on a clear day with a 3-hour advance notice? I doubt it.

But Cathy, we fight back instantaneously. The commenters, the other bloggers. We don't need to shut anyone up. We can put them down. Like what you did to me and I am now doing to you.

I’m going to add something a bit strange. I hope (and it will probably just remain a hope) that Michael Hiltzik develops... a personal blog.

Maybe not even a political one, although that would be fine too.

If he chooses humility even at this late stage, then confidently moves forward toward advancing his ideas, whatever they may be, he may gain a following for his newfound forthrightness and the fact that he has adequately paid for his transgression. And naturally, with his views, he will have some people who agree with him.

As others have said, at least he’s not guilty of plagiarism.

While he may just choose to shy away from the Internet, I’d encourage him to cinch the saddle tighter and step in it again. He’s not the first person to ever do something stupid on the net (not the first person on this page and not the first person in this comment!). His biggest mistake was doing it while working for the LA Times.

Now that his discipline has been decided and the public has had a chance to form its opinions, he should pick himself up and move forward.

Rush Limbaugh, a man many respect, did his 3-hour radio show today with his normal aplomb and good cheer… then, in a deal worked out between his attorney, Roy Black, and Florida prosecutors, he turned himself in, was arrested and charged with a single count of prescription fraud, was released on bond, and has promised to continue his physician supervised drug addiction treatment regimen for the next 18-months, at which time, prosecutors will drop the charge.

He showed humility after a personal failing and challenge and then he moved forward with confidence. Michael Hiltzik should learn from his intellectual enemy.

Why my other comment didn't show up first, I don't know, but here goes:

I'm not surprised.

It's what I expected, LA Times - a good decision. And this from myself, your vehement critic.

A frequent commentator on Patterico's blog during this last week, having had several head-to-head sessions with Patterico where, while I agreed with his exposing the deception, but disagreed with him for being too soft on Hiltzik.

My reasoning can be found here: http://patterico.com/2006/04/21/4474/more-on-why-the-times-should-not-discipline-hiltzik/#comment-36951

I will just say the LA Times' response was firm, measured, fair, and dare I add for a Conservative critic of your paper, well-explained and reasoned.

It fits smack in the range of remedies I consider appropriate. I think it's a good one.

Well done.

Chris

P.S. Knock off the outrageous eye-boggling mind-shocking bias.

Even 99 Percent truth is not good enough. 100 percent or nothing.

"Allowing a halfwitted far right idiot like Patrick Frey to bamboozle the LA Times shows how far you have fallen"

I won't get myself into the position of commenting on the propriety of the editor's reaction or anything like that, but I think it's worth pointing out that the fundamental facts of the case are just those -- facts -- and have nothing to do either with Patrick Frey's politics, or his ability to bamboozle anybody about anything.

I disagreed with Frey lots of times (and I agree with him lots too). Heck, in the above comment thread I linked (if you read the entire thing), I think I creamed him in logic.

Yet that doesn't change the facts. So as they say in the House of Commons, Matt Welch, "Hear, hear."

I really don't have an opinion one way or another about the appropriate punishment (if any) for Mr. Hiltzik. I only want to comment on one aspect.

I've only been blogging myself since September, but I've been reading them for a number of years. And it rankles me when blogging etiquette is (evidently) confused with the manners of a bulletin board like Usenet.

The whole "sock puppetry" (as my friend Patterico calls it) has never, ever, ever been considered acceptable on blogs; at least not on those I've read. Pseudonyms, sure; lots of people use those, though I don't (I blog -- and comment -- under my own name). But not multiple-personality comment disorder, where one invents ficticious personae that applaud one's every argument and assail one's opponents.

As somebody noted, that is like an author using a pseudonym to favorably review his own books on Amazon.com.

When Isaac Asimov was writing reviews for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, he was once handed a "Paul French" novel to review. Paul French was, of course, Asimov's only pseudonym -- for his young-adult "Lucky" Starr series. He was tempted... but he declined with an explanation.

Would that Mr. Hiltzik had as much integrity.

Michael Hiltzik is welcome to post any opinion he wants on my blog; he can even use a nom-de-comment, I don't care. Nor would I be offended if he failed to identify himself as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times; it makes no difference to me.

And he can wildly disagree with my posts. All of that is well within blogging etiquette. But I would certainly find it boorish and classless if he signed on as different Commedia dell'Arte characters to gang up on me or some other commenter, to make it appear as though he was a whole mob by himself.

That was his crime; that is what he should have been punished or admonished for; that is what he should have confessed.

Although you, personally, appear to understand the point, Mr. Welch, I don't think your employer does... even now.

And that is symptomatic of why the Times is dying.

Dafydd ab Hugh

Tom Cleaver:

For this hypocrite to claim that somehow Michael Hiltzik has done something wrong by doing what the rest of his posters do, demonstrates his complete and total intellectual hypocrisy.

Actually, it demonstrates nothing, except that Tom Cleaver has no clue what the issue is. Hiltzik may have gotten in trouble simply for using a pseudonym, but that was never Patterico's beef, nor anyone else's. It was his dishonest use of a pseudonym to create a virtual echo chamber - exactly the same sin I would be creating myself if I followed up this post with another post under my real name, praising Xrlq for his brilliant insight.

The Tom Cleaver posts above sound like Hiltzik. His thin skin and hostile, over-the-top ranting when anyone disagrees with him, make him one more lefty moonbat. He shouldn't be as his book, "Dealers of Lightning," was terrific. There should be a place where those who disagree can discuss important issues. There are not many, unfortunately. Hiltzik contributed to that problem. His sock puppet cheerleaders attacked anyone who disagreed with him, pretending to be supporters when they were, of course, his own lesser self. Political discourse has always been contentious, the Jefferson- Sally Hemmings story was spread by a political opponent, but the Times should avoid voices like his.

I feel some sympathy for Mr. Hiltzik, but ultimately the Times could not let this pass. I've listened to Mr. Hiltzik debate or attempt to debate. He has trouble dealing with challenges and reacts poorly to them. That's fine for a print media person (I think Mark Twain said something to the effect that you should never argue with anyone who buys their ink by the barrel) who can simply put it on the page--and wait for a few letters to the editor, which can be printed or ignored--the paper's choice. In the cut and thrust of the interactive world that sort of personality and intellectual dishonesty turned it into a credibility problem. Unfortunately the credibility problem was exposed for a good part of the Time's readership to see. The Times had to do something when one of their columnists developed a credibility problem. Mr. Hiltzik has been in trouble before in the Times organization, and I fault the Times's management for selecting Mr. Hiltzik for a blog. He was the wrong choice. Nobody looks particularly good in this mess.

I never heard of Hiltzik before this episode. I think more people know of him because of this incident than his Pulitzer. That is punishment enough for the thin-skinned loudmouth. I think the Times went too far in their actions, but I would rather see them go too far in this direction than the other.

"As somebody noted, that is like an author using a pseudonym to favorably review his own books on Amazon.com."

I ran into this type of situation and can honestly say I passed the "Hiltzik test". I came across my (non-blog) site on Alexa or somewhere like that. The section for reader reviews showed no reviews and it asked if I was familiar with the site and would like to review it. Of course, I was familiar with the site but I declined to review it since I was the author. I was hoping that there would be at least one review there but I wasn't going to do it myself. I knew that was just wrong. Mr. Hiltzik should have known it, too.

Hiltzik should have been shown the door at the Times.

This is his second MAJOR ethics violation.

Why would the Times editors want to keep him around?

Additional thoughts:

Michael Hiltzik Watch: Golden State Column and Blog Discontinued for Ethics Violations - The Round-Up

Flap (Dr. Gregory Cole)

I have no beefs with the punishment. But the Times needs to stop confusing the issue. Pseudonymity per se is not dishonest. Misrepresenting oneself is. The Times disingenuously mischaracterizes critics with descriptions like this:

"Over the past few days, some analysts have used this episode to portray the Web as a new frontier for newspapers, saying that it raises fresh and compelling ethical questions."

No, it's the same ethical issue, in a different medium. And the phraseology seems dangerously like what politicians use when they don't want to answer an argument, so they rephrase the issue.

The Times editors seem to have a superstitious fear of mentioning the words "sock puppetry" in their corporate explanations, let alone explaining how it's like a reporter writing laudatory letters to the editor about his stories under an assumed name.

Perhaps if the Times editors participated in pseudonymous blog commentary -- without misrepresenting themselves or discussing the Times -- they'd get a better understanding.

Let the top editors take part in a blog about sports, or history, something non-journalistic where they could interact with others and come to learn about how Internet communities form and grow.

Then after several months, they could write about their experiences. I guarantee the editors would have more personal understanding about this world of the Web, where the quacking lunatics often use harsh language.

I'm in agreement with Patterico.

The blog should not disappear. Actually also, I am convinced that Hiltzik did not need to be suspended.

Would have been good if the LAT had restated policy and given Hiltzik another try at it. Assuming, of course, that the man even agreed that what he did was wrong...which if that was the case probably was a news item in itself.

Because, after all, LAT hired Hiltzik and published and promoted his work.

        The Times did the right thing in suspending Hiltzik.

        Reporters should be honest.  I can see why Hiltzick might want to comment on various blogs without revealing that he is "Michael Hiltzik, Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist for the Los Angeles Times.  Concealing your identity on-line isn't necessarily dishonest.

        But to sign some posts on a given website with your own name, and others with psuedonyms, is dishonest.  You pretend to be more than one person, which you are not.  Hiltzik was wrong to do it.

        And the people here who criticize "Patterico," and who try to make this an issue of 'psuedonyms vs. real names,' are also dishonest.

The comment above about declining to post a favorable review on your own book when no comments have been posted, is much to the point. John Lott has been pilloried on the left for succumbing to that temptation with his own books. We'll see if l'affaire Hiltzik is mentioned in the same quarters.

Hiltzik willingly shed his credibility, and for what? To get the satisfaction of delivering some low blows? If he had come to the discussion, such as the one on cable companies, and identified himself as a Times columnist who had researched the issue, I would have thought “great - this is someone who may have a much greater understanding of the issue”. Instead he chose to open with “Boy, are you guys stupid” under a pseudonym. And to the blogger’s credit, he still took Hiltzik’s argument seriously!

Sidebar: Yes Patterico, I know - it’s the sock puppetry, not the pseudonyms.

This whole business makes Hiltzik look cowardly and adolescent. Attitudes like his dripped from the pages of the Times, culminating with the astounding “pseudo-journalists” rant from fromer editor James Carroll. The Times is administering some bitter medicine, but it’s needed if they are to win back subscribers - like me.

The LA Times had a choice of doing nothing about Hiltzik's sock puppetry and openly acknowledging that liberal ideology is what matters most at the paper or disciplining him and pretending that ethics trumps ideology. The real problem at the Times is not the immature behavior of a single columnist but using its news columns to editorialize for liberal policies and candidates.

I read the LA Times off the rack, and go to the Business section first. Dilbert and Tom Petruno are the draws.

Hiltzik's columns belong in the 'California' section, as they reflect the exact same bias and perspective as George Skelton, Steve Lopez, Patt Morrison, etc. His dishonesty is another question, and tells me all I need to know about his character. What the LA Times decides to finally do about it will also be a display of character.

This seemed an appropriate, measured response to Mr. Hiltzik's misdeeds. Hiltzik's initial response - one of defiant name-calling - showed a lack of understanding of the concept. It's good to see The Times has a better understanding than Mr. Hiltzik.

On a side note, I'm very impressed by Mr. Welch's response to the ad hominem attack on Patterico; the question in this instance is whether Mr. Hiltzik did what he was accused of and what the appropriate punishment is. And whether he did seems to be in no doubt whatsoever.

--JRM

Bradley J. Fikes wrote:

"But the Times needs to stop confusing the issue. Pseudonymity per se is not dishonest. Misrepresenting oneself is."

Dean Baquet wrote:

"Hiltzik has acknowledged using pseudonyms to post a single comment on his blog on latimes.com and multiple comments elsewhere on the Web that dealt with his column and other issues involving the newspaper."

While you may lament the reluctance to use the phrase "sock puppet," there is nothing unambiguous about the wording: "using pseudonyms to post [...] comments [...] that dealt with his column and other issues involving the newspaper."

I believe I recognize Tom Cleaver from a past dialogue I've had with him over on the Golden State blog, and it's clear that he is still as fiercely flippant and condescending as ever.

This is not about Patrick Frey, as much as some insist. One of the best attributes of the blogosphere is its ability to bring instances of dishonesty and/or selective fact-checking to the fore, and let the chips fall where they may. The "chips", in this case, are the ethical rules of the LAT. If they carry are to carry any weight, they must be applied when put to the test.

In the case of Mr. Hiltzik, it's clear that the rules were tested, and the Times chose to honor those rules rather than rationalize the situation. Regardless of whether one agrees with the severity of the punishment, the Times should at least be applauded for taking the side of its own rules.

Two housecleaning comments:

1) Please use your real names. That's a request, not a demand. TakeFive, JJ, Flap, kcom, Dafydd ab Hugh, stackja -- I'm looking at you! It's my firm belief and experience that the quality of discussion improves immensely when people avoid the cheap courage of pseudonymity when tossing around insults. Would you say whatever it is you want to say about Hiltzik or anyone else if you had to stake your name behind it? That's what I want to know.

2) The blockquote function and other formatting stuff like italics don't work on this comments form yet. If you want to quote from something, do it the old fashioned way -- use quotes!

Housecleaning, Part 2:

Comments are (hopefully) now being moderated (as is Times policy), so expect delays, though I'll try to drum up some approval-coverage....

Housecleaning, Part 3:

Oh, and you can't leave any hyperlinks in the text of your comments (it will simply refuse to publish). We might eventually change this....

I believe suspension and reassignment are appropriate. However, I wonder why the LA Times finds it necessary to continue to obfuscate exactly what Hiltzak engaged in -- not merely commenting using a psuedonym, but by faking the reality that these psuedonyms were actually OTHER people, who went about fighting Hiltzak's fights.

I've blogged since Aug 2004 and always under my own name. Prior to that I would comment on message boards under a psuedonym, but never-ever pretended to be more than one person. While some may find the idea tempting, ANY pretense at credibility is forever lost when such a masquerade is unmasked (as it inevitably is).

As Tom Cleaver (self-proclaimed member of the "Reality-based Community") above demonstrates, the base of the contemporary Left is consumed with hatred. It is a hatred that the LA Times has seen fit to feed, not just on its Editorial Page but in its ostensible News/Business/Entertainment sections. As loud and demanding and "connected" the "Reality-based Community" is, they are still represent only a small portion of the LA Times [potential] readership.

Which is a large part of the problem behind the LA Times plunging subscribers - regardless of how many people the LA Times see fit to stand in supermarkets each weekend handing out "free" newspapers.

Dafydd ab Hugh is a real name.

My apologies to DaH....

And Flap said his name was Dr. Gregory Cole.

I'm going to (appropriately) pile onto Tom Cleaver's post. If you had bothered to read about the entire issue, from beginning to end, you would realize that Patterico's problem was not the use of pseudonyms. (Seriously, do you think anyone over the age of 5 is stupid enough to complain about a tactic someone else uses while trumpeting the fact that he uses the exact same tactic?) Rather, the problem was the use of multiple identities (aka "sock puppets") to echo each other's arguments and tear down opposing viewpoints. The LA Times, for some reason, and as is their right, chose to focus merely on the use of pseudonyms. If you can't see the difference, and can't see why this is a problem, then you should use the LA Times as litterbox liner, since the intellectual prowess of the paper is way over your head.

Re: Housecleaning

Matt -Given the topic, it's understandable why you would call for us to use our real names. But my reason for not doing so is perfectly exemplified by Tom Cleaver and his fellow travelers. Read the comments Mr. Cleaver left on Patterico's site and you'll see that we are dealing with someone that is ill. I don't mean that as an insult, honestly.

An example of this illness was detailed in a Washington Post article a couple weeks ago about a woman that runs a website called Talk Left, or My Left Foot, or something akin to that. Anyway, the woman is basically being consumed by Leftist anger. My opinion is that when these sorts of people finally admit how ineffectual they are in advancing their positions, they either suffer a mental breakdown or turn to more devious methods.

Witness what happened to Michelle Malkin this past week. She re-posted a flyer on her website that a Santa Cruz anti-war group had handed out, and the Left went ballistic. They dug up anything they could find on Michelle, her husband, even her small children - and posted this on the Lefty forums. I think the implied threat was pretty clear.

My policy, even when using a pseudonym, is to never write anything I will regret seeing attributed to me or would be embarrassed to have my family read. Or my employer. But when one side of the political spectrum will not, or cannot debate in good faith, I don’t find it reasonable to open myself or my family to potential threats just because I wish to join the discussion.

Matt,

"While you may lament the reluctance to use the phrase "sock puppet," there is nothing unambiguous about the wording: "using pseudonyms to post [...] comments [...] that dealt with his column and other issues involving the newspaper."

Point taken. But Hiltzik didn't just post comments that "dealt" with his column and the newspaper, he attacked critics and praised himself. The Times statement is still maddingly oblique as to just what occured.

Further muddying the waters, the editors' note states:

"But employing pseudonyms constitutes deception and violates a central tenet of The Times' ethics guidelines: Staff members must not misrepresent themselves and must not conceal their affiliation with The Times. This rule applies equally to the newspaper and the Web world."

The misleading pseudonym = deception meme rears its ugly head once again. The Times doesn not seem to have thought this issue through enough.

If a reporter with a disease posted pseudonymous comments on a Web site asking for help in dealing with the affliction, not for a story, but out of personal need, would that be considered a violation of Times policy?

Or, if a Times reporter took part in a blog discussion about sports (and the reporter was not covering sports), should the reporter automatically be required to reveal his/her identity? Would that be required of the reporter walking into a bar discussion?

This blog discussion is a good start to making the Times more transparent. But anyone seeking the most complete and accurate information about what happened with one of the Times' own employees would have to go elsewhere, namely Patterico. That is a sad commentary on the Times' refusal to answer questions and criticisms about its own workings -- the same information it demands from everyone else.

TakeFive -- Actually, the "use your real names" idea pre-dates the Hiltzik affair. If you look at comments sections that are just untenably crazy & off-putting to all except the true believers, the percentage of pseudonymity is almost always very high.

And like I said, it's a request, not a demand. But know that the bar for approval of a pseudonymous comment will be *much* higher, especially if the comment involves a rhetorical attack on an individual or entire group.

While I respect arguments about anonymity in political speech, A) we have no obligation to host it on our site, B) I think the real-world chances of being endangered by your political comments on some weblog are infinitesimal, and C) I frankly suspect you wouldn't be so willing to accuse an entire chunk of the political spectrum of mental illness & the inability to have a simple good-faith discussion if you included your real name.

Sure, I could be wrong about that, but lacking information about you & your track record of commentary, I'm left to go with what I've learned about blog comments over the years. And that's that pseudonymity makes people braver than they actually are.

That's the thinking, anyway, and don't take it personally. Just know that your bar is higher.

Matt sez:

"While you may lament the reluctance to use the phrase 'sock puppet,' there is nothing unambiguous about the wording: 'using pseudonyms to post [...] comments [...] that dealt with his column and other issues involving the newspaper."

Actually, there is. Using pseudonyms is not inherently dishonest. Using pseudonyms while discussing oneself, one's employer, or anything else that makes one's true identity more relevant is a bit closer to the line, but the real issue is pretending to be more than one person.

"Please use your real names. That's a request, not a demand. TakeFive, JJ, Flap, kcom, Dafydd ab Hugh, stackja -- I'm looking at you! It's my firm belief and experience that the quality of discussion improves immensely when people avoid the cheap courage of pseudonymity when tossing around insults."

Religions die hard, so I won't question that it's your firm belief. But experience? I doubt it. Mine has been that bloggers are far more civil than Usenetters, on average, but that neither group tends to be more civil, more thoughtful, or anything else except maybe a little more intimidated, when using their real names. As Patterico has already pointed out, two of those individuals did use their real names, but perhaps more importantly, none of those who didn't have posted anything remotely insulting in this thread. Quite the contrary: the only participant in this thread who has tossed around any insults was Tom Cleaver, who posted them under his (allegedly) real name.

Would you say whatever it is you want to say about Hiltzik or anyone else if you had to stake your name behind it? That's what I want to know.

Seeing as the individuals you named didn't post anything particularly controversial, I think it's a pretty safe bet that they would. I certainly wouldn't post anything under the name "Xrlq" that I thought would hurt my reputation in the blogosphere. If I had to comment under my real name, I certainly wouldn't say anything different, but then again, I probably wouldn't comment at all. Is that the goal? It sure is a good thing Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay didn't have a finger-wagging editor prohibiting them from writing anything they would not willingly publish under their real names.

Xlrq -- Like I said, the blockquote tag don't work here....

I appreciate that the discussion here has been civil and lively, named and unnamed alike, and in fact I intended to say that in my first Housecleaning note, but deleted it by accident. Also, I didn't name-check you above, because your history of commentary is well-known to me.

But as for religion and experience, I have little or none of the former, and tons of the latter. I have long encouraged commenters on my own site to use their names, especially when levying attacks on people, and though the comments-action there has never been in the range of hundreds, it's also never been the kind of cesspool or hallelujah chorus that you'll see on political blogs of equivalent size.

And, obviously, it's not "the goal" to dissuade people from commenting, nor are we "prohibiting" anyone from commenting, as is obvious when you note that, um, comments are open, and on a thread that isn't particularly flattering about my employer. The goal is very transparent -- to build a lively and actually readable comments section at the website of a large media organization.

No pseudonymity here, Matt... I agree with you about real names, but also that people may have valid reasons for not using them and it's better for them to say what they have to say than not. These reasons include physical security (for example, when making a controversial political statement or image that certain groups... will threaten to kill you for and actually carry it out... or say a woman concerned about the safety of posting her details on the net... this site allows 13-year olds+ to contribute after all!)

If anyone checks out my email address it uses my full name (Chris Dollis) or if they click on the link to my blog, it has my name plastered all over it... I just LIKE "Chris from Victoria, BC"... back in the day, if a local woman saw it she'd strike up a conversation and next thing you know, we're having coffee.

Of course, then I would have to fall in love with the most wonderful woman I have ever met... who lives in Australia.

Typical.

Back to topic. Good blog and great conversation, Matt. You should never attempt to please your critics, only tolerate them and let them express themselves. You seem to do that and as a result have less critics.

Matt writes:

"...frankly suspect you wouldn't be so willing to accuse an entire chunk of the political spectrum of mental illness & the inability to have a simple good-faith discussion if you included your real name."

Let me disagree. I have, and will, continue to accuse the deranged-by-hatred contemporary illiberal Left as not arguing in good faith. I am, too, aware that some of these people could move from cyber threats to realtime. I understand that people with children at home might want to be even more circumspect when dealing with an element that sees not much wrong with shooting into Republican campaign headquarters or slashing the tires on Republican "get voters to the polls" van.

Face it, you're not going to see an acknowledgment of Hiltzik's actual transgressions here. Bradley made the key point: if you want the facts, they aren't available at the LAT. They pretend it's about the use of screen names, but that's pure smoke and mirrors. They're being deliberately obtuse, with a little fancy footwork thrown in for cover.

The issue is blindingly obvious: it's sock puppetry. Oh, there are ambiguous weasel words aplenty, a virtual fig leaf, readily available to misdirect the debate. But that's it, they simply refuse to engage on the issues. Nothing new here, so let's move on.

I'm not sure, Black Jack. I said this before at Patterico. You can't have an offense without a rule. The LAT has a rule against pseudonymity, not against "sock-puppetry". My defense attorney's reaction is that if there's no rule against "sock-puppetry" there's no grounds for discipline. The LAT feels differently. It feels Mr. Hiltzik's actions were wrong and looked for the closest matching rule to discipline him. My further reaction, as posted earlier, is that he did not offend against the LAT but against his readers and readers of other blogs on which he commented. Patterico's exposure, along with the blog storm which followed, took care of that. There is no need for further action from the LAT.

Interesting thread, and I have a couple of comments:

Hiltzik's use of psuedonyms in the manner in which he used them is unquestionably unethical. It was intended to deceive others, glorify his own opinions and avoid being held accountable for politically based attacks.

Obfuscation of one's identity out of a fear of reprisal for his opinions is a legitimate non-ethical consideration, but that didn't reasonably apply to Hiltzik's situation, since he posted his opinions under his true name. Hiltzik has received not only the censure and the loss of credibility he deserved for cheerleading his own opinions while illegitimately attacking his critics, but the ignominy of being caught dissimulating to do so.

As to whether or not the punishment fits the crime, I am in no position to judge. It largely depends upon how the L.A. Times views unethical public behavior by one of their employees, and how much harm has been done to the reputation of the paper and its stockholders.

Regarding pseudonyms in general, you can find a discussion I had on the topic with an ethics expert at a website called the "Ethics Scoreboard" (note: the simplest of Google searches will take you right there).

Pseudonymity can be ethical as well as unethical. In Hiltzik's case, it wasn't even a close call.

It seems to me that there is a serious difference in perspective between the bloggers like Mr Frey, who believe that the problem was Mr Hiltzik's "sock-puppetry," but have no problems with his using a pseudonym, and the Times and other journalism sources, which have had no (stated) problems with his praise of himself, but do with his use of pseudonyms. Though I'm a blogger, I took the position, early on, that Mr Hiltzik's problem would be a violation of journalistic ethics, and that he would have to be fired by the Times.

That he was suspended, lost his in-paper column as well as his blog, and will be "reassigned" seems to me to be tantamount to firing: he will have to start from the bottom (or at least near it) again, and his credibility as a journalist (the part that really matters to the Times is seriously compromised. My suspicion is that Mr Hiltzik will be pressured, by his own pride, if not the editors, to resign.

You noted Steve Smith's comment, "Perhaps demonstrating, once and for all, that the LA Times doesn't get the internet or the blogosphere." I'd say that's correct; concomitantly, I'd say that much of the blogosphere doesn't get the newspaper business. With a few exceptions, neither side understands the other very well.

I do have one question about all this: why on earth Hiltzik would feel it necessary to create pseudonymic personalities in the first place for commentary on his own blog.

But it's strange that among all the things we could discuss (a massive challenge to immigration policies; an unfinished, unpopular war; a domestic suspension of various individual liberties; impending environmental crises; oil prices; etc.) this is the one that draws forty-some reader comments. Why is that?

I don't mean to minimize Hiltzik's duplicity, (and it certainly appears to be that). But it seems to me less pressing, less consequential for the world and for me, than almost everything else presented for possible comment in this very interesting section of the Times's website.

John -- In fairness, there are some 600 comments debating immigration over here....

Matt, a couple of observations:

First, your statement that pseudonymous commenters are less likely to be civil is perhaps true more often than not -- but like any generalization, it has exceptions. Other commenters have already observed that one commenter on this thread, apparently posting under his real name, called you and your colleagues idiots and me a moron. He then went to my blog and dropped a stunningly ugly comment, complete with several f-bombs and a wish that I die in a car accident.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of poeple here commenting under pseudonyms and making reasonable points in a calm and respectful manner.

You say that people generally have nothing to fear in having people know their real names. The experience of Michelle Malkin suggests otherwise. I have had people make threats about my job, both on the Golden State blog and, more recently, on my own. The man who made the threat on my blog commented under a semi-pseudonym, but made no real effort to hide his name from me (he is a freelance journalist).

(Incidentally, it's interesting to know all comments are moderated. As for the threats on my job on the Golden State site, I guess Hiltzik allowed those to get past moderation, even as truthful comments about the newspaper's declining circlation didn't see the light of day.)

But there is also support for your theory. A commenter from the L.A. Times calling herself "Masha" and "workingjournalist" (and, incidentally, defending Hiltzik at every turn and commenting on the paper while failing to disclose that she was with the LAT) called me and certain other conservatives "fascists." Would she have done so if forced to use her real name? I don't know.

Finally: if you're moderating comments, you have very little excuse for not allowing hyperlinks, which are, in my view, essential to a fully open discussion.

Kudos to you and the editors for throwing this open to readers for comments.

Matt--Yes, I know, and I've been reading that thread for a month with occasional interest and/or dismay. Much of it (unlike the Hiltzik conversation above) isn't very informed or useful analysis. This thread, on the other hand, is mainly dominated by calmer, more thoughtful voices, even when I don't agree with them.

But point taken: I should probably be mixing it up over there, where the shouting is drowning out reason . . .

Matt,

You and the Times deserve thanks for allowing this exchange of ideas. I don't envy your position of mediator. Here's three questions I hope Times management considers:

1: What is a pseudonym?

For example, if an LA Times staffer used just a first name, or some vague identifier like "Mike in Los Angeles," (or California) is that a pseudonym?

2: Would a non-disclosure of being employed by the LA Times in an Internet discussion, even in a non-journalistic context where the question never arose, constitute concealment?

3: Does the Times see any difference whatsover in using a pseudonym in non-work related matters vs. work-related?

If these matters are addressed anywhere in the Times Code of Ethics, please point them out.

To what new position will Hiltzik be "reassigned"? With absolutely no credibility, to place him in any position as a "journalist" is to only demolish what is left of the Times' stature as a serious newspaper. Furthermore, I believe that he should be fired simply as punishment for his misdeeds.

I second Matt's observation about real names and civility. ...although I still need to be reminded from time to time.

...and I can understand why the Times did this, especially if he's a business reporter. Does the name Jayson Blair ring a bell? ...Not that this guy was doing anything like that, but whenever the Times feels like someone on the payroll has threatened their credibility, they should be free to protect themselves.

Patrick:

1) Looking for individual "rules" or "exceptions" for the real name/fake name civil/uncivil thing is a mug's game; the generalization is about an entire board. I'm fully aware that named people can be crazy, and pseudo-mice can be sane, etc.

2) "The experience of Michelle Malkin" is not analagous to the experience of 99.9% of weblog commenters. She is a widely read columnist, book author and weblogger, whose shtick involves writing incendiary things about one half of the political spectrum, defending the Japanese internment, calling people traitors, conflating illegal Mexican workers with murderous Islamic terrorists, and on and on and on. She's an extremely -- and intentionally -- polarizing figure. Michael Moore and Ted Rall get death threats, too; that's part of the price of choosing to be a public & inflammatory political commentator. All that said, I don't begrudge anyone's anonymity; it's just that the anonymous will have a higher bar when leaving comments here.

3) HTML is now enabled.

Bradley -- I'm not really mediating; just enabling a public discussion. It's important to emphasize that I don't even work for the news part of the newspaper (the Opinion Section reports to the publisher), and don't claim to speak for anyone.

I do think that the editor's reaction, in both word and deed, demonstrates that a serious chunk of the offense was using the pseudonymity to comment on institution- and author-related matters. Beyond that, I'll make sure to tell y'all if there are any other public explanations/discussions forthcoming.

“While I respect arguments about anonymity in political speech, A) we have no obligation to host it on our site”

No argument here. Not sure why you mentioned this.

“B) I think the real-world chances of being endangered by your political comments on some weblog are infinitesimal”

Cathy Seip mentioned on her blog that Hiltzik has been husbanding a grudge over something she wrote 13 years ago. Something Hiltzik even copped to. Am I worried Hiltzik or his minions will climb through my window because I said something mean? Unlikely. But actions do have consequences and the risk to reward ratio just makes it prudent to give up your anonymity reluctantly.

“C) I frankly suspect you wouldn't be so willing to accuse an entire chunk of the political spectrum of mental illness & the inability to have a simple good-faith discussion if you included your real name.”

I have had several letters to the editor published by both the LA Times and the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. You know the policy: name, address, and phone number - and they have called to confirm. And believe me, my heart skips a beat when I send off a letter highlighting some aspect of union corruption. But I think the newspaper reading community is rather staid and the fiery true believers have long since abandoned the op-ed pages for the web.

Look - I agree it seems like a trite stereotype to label one’s ideological opponents as mentally ill, but I feel the same way about people that insist the Clinton mafia murdered Vince Foster. Or the nut who argues he’s doing God’s work by killing an abortion doctor. The difference is the breadth and intensity of the rhetoric coming from the Left today, particularly at the street level, that causes me concern.

I have tried repeatedly to browse sites like Dailykos, MyDD, or Democratic Underground to get some insight into the Left, but have found them to be unreadable. See, comments like Mr. Cleaver’s are not the exception, or even the rule - for rules get broken sometimes. They are like some sort of catechism required to be a member of the Left today.

And yes, it is an entire chunk of the spectrum when you add in the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, anti-war protesters, animal rights activists, Earth Firsters, anti-globalization types, anarchists, etc., all reliably lined up on the left and willing to use other means to advance their agenda. Like the torched Hummer dealership not far from my home - courtesy of ELF.
Sorry to go so far of topic. Just felt like I needed to justify that mental illness remark.

TakeFive -- Speaking of Letters to the Editor, another one of our ideas here is that we may want to eventually harvest some of the Web-comments into the print pages, which as you know requires a much higher level of disclosure, etc.

"TakeFive -- Speaking of Letters to the Editor, another one of our ideas here is that we may want to eventually harvest some of the Web-comments into the print pages, which as you know requires a much higher level of disclosure, etc."

Not a problem. If you wish to convert a comment into a letter to the editor - send an email to the supplied address. The commentor can accede to your request by providing their name and numbers.

But if you are planning to harvest "letters" without the poster having an opportunity to edit - that would be a problem, for me anyway. You know the rule; write it at night, read it in the morning. Blog comments by nature are rather terse and not always well focused, and I detest having the editors change my writing while my name is still attached Yes, I’m aware of how egotistical that sounds considering that even columnists get edited, but blog comments are like the floor sweepings of our minds.

Perhaps you have some other method in mind?

Oh, without a doubt, permission would be asked for, etc.

And with that, I'm out for the night; it's possible no more comments will be approved until the morning, unless I check back in before bedtime.

This discussion is rather confusing, but it seems to me that some feel that the tendency for the blogosphere and commentors to use pseudonyms in the first place are partly responsible for what happened in Hiltzik's case.

I don't care, frankly, one way or another whether someone uses a real name when posting or a pseudonym. As long as I can attribute writings to a certain individual entity, I'm happy. I mean, who here hasn't enjoyed the works of O. Henry? Or even chuckled the Silence Dogood letters?

What bothers me is the intent of the pseudonym. The cold facts are that Hiltzik deliberately created phony individuals to praise his own work. The dead-tree equivalent would be for him to write letters praising his work to the editorial section under phony names and addresses. He has the option of doing both. But the question is, just because he can, SHOULD he?

Simply because someone can send in a letter under a phony or anonymous name does not mean that the Postal Service is broken. Likewise, the ability to use pseudonyms does not mean that the anonymity of the internet is a bad thing. It just needs to be used responsibly. If you did things under a false name for cheap personal gain in "real" life, you would lose credibility. If you do so online, you should be viewed with equal disdain.

In my opinion, Hiltzik did not just engage in shady self-promotion, he violated the trust of his readers. Compounded with his incendiary and rude behavior towards others in the Blogosphere, I see no great loss in his suspension. He lost my respect from his first snobbish post on his blog, and in engaging in this latest behavior, he lost my trust. And I will attach those losses to everything he writes in all mediums from now on.

As I would with anyone who showed no integrity.

Matt Welch:

"1) Please use your real names. That's a request, not a demand. TakeFive, JJ, Flap, kcom, Dafydd ab Hugh, stackja -- I'm looking at you!"

Great leaping horny toads, Matt... Dafydd ab Hugh IS MY REAL NAME. It's the name on my drivers license, my passport, my DD-214, my college degrees, and my eighteen published novels.

Yeesh. Look me up in Amazon.com.

Dafydd

John:

"But it's strange that among all the things we could discuss (a massive challenge to immigration policies; an unfinished, unpopular war; a domestic suspension of various individual liberties; impending environmental crises; oil prices; etc.) this is the one that draws forty-some reader comments. Why is that?"

I'm sure that Jane Yolen would love an answer to the implied question: what makes some threads (or books) "sell" and others just lie there like a lox?

Jane wrote a well-received fantasy novel for young adults -- about a school for witches and wizards. She is a bestselling, Newberry-Award winning author; the book sold fairly well, but not spectacularly.

Certainly nothing like -- what's it called again? -- oh yeah, Harry Potter.

My friend Brad Linaweaver wrote a fascinating alternate-history novel called Moon of Ice, how the world might have changed if Hitler had won WWII. It was his best book, it's been republished a couple of times. But Fatherland (by some other guy) was a bestseller... and Brad has it on good authority that Robert Harris did, in fact, read Moon of Ice as part of his research for Fatherland.

And back in the early 1990s, I published a two-book novel -- Arthur War Lord and Far Beyond the Wave -- that drew heavily upon the mythology of the supposedly "nonfiction" books Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the Messianic Legacy; in fact, I was the first person to really make use of their fascinating (but ultimately cockamamie) thesis that Jesus didn't really die on the cross; he was rescued, fled to France, married Mary Magdalene, and his ancestors eventually ruled Europe as the Merovingian dynasty (the first author other than the sister of one of the authors of HB, HG).

But somehow, a feller named Dan Brown got all the sales -- and the lawsuit -- years later, with some little schmatta called the Da Vinci Code.

So the Hiltzik thread gets a lot of phosphor, but a post about the urgent subject of a "windfall profits" tax on oil companies probably won't get squat.

C'est la vie!

Dafydd ab Hugh <--- (real name)

"Cathy Seip mentioned on her blog that Hiltzik has been husbanding a grudge over something she wrote 13 years ago...actions do have consequences and the risk to reward ratio just makes it prudent to give up your anonymity reluctantly."

Now wait just a goldarn minute here! Even though this commenter admitted Hiltzik would be "unlikely" to crawl through someone's window, he's still using me as an example that commenters might reasonably have something real to fear from using their real names.

As someone who's experienced among the very worst of trolls -- not only those verminy Daily Kos readers who for the past few days have been wishing me dead because I'm a Republican, but also my daughter's truly nuts ex-high school teacher who for almost two years has maintainted an angry site about us under my domain name that alarms some of my friends -- I agree with Matt that the chances of actual harm resulting from daring to sign your real name to your opinions are exceedingly small.

And I also don't like the notion that women have anything more to fear about all this than men. If some nutcase wants to blow up your house or shoot you on the street, being a man doesn't give you any special protection, and being a woman doesn't make you a frail flower.

Please include me out of this nervous Nellies club.

Matt,

This blog is using typekey -- which allows us to post under pseudonyms, and in fact nearly demands that we do so. I only own one pseudonym, not several, as Mr. Hiltzik did. I use exactly the one and never use my real name. Hence, you can google search my pseudonym and find out anything I've ever posted anywhere anytime.

I've never liked Mr. Hiltzik's commentaries, and wondered why his op-ed stuff was in Business and not in Opinion or California -- where the rest of his friends go. That said, when Mr. Hiltzik returns, please consider putting his column in Classifieds (the situations area would be nice), so I can truly ignore it. And while you're at it, please remove the perfume you guys occasionally add to the Sunday paper -- we have allergies and have to wait half a day after opening the paper before we can find out all the dead news from the day before.

Whenever the talk turns to anonymity and the Web, I think of that story Plato tells in the Republic about the humble shepherd who finds a ring that makes him invisible and then finds he can't resist taking advantage. With the power of the ring, he seduces the king's wife, kills the king and takes the throne for himself -- illustrating the notion that impunity poses temptations that are too great for just about anyone.

Anonymity on the Web seems to grant a sort of impunity (although sometimes it's illusory, as Michael Hiltzik found out to his rue). If you can be held accountable for what you say, you can say anything. It's hard to achieve civility in those circumstances.

I hope you continue to encourage posters to use real names here. It's not perfect (I've been uncivil over my real name often enough), just better.

Matt/LAT:

I know you are probably thinking that you are taking enough heat already, but I've been onto something concerning Mr. Hiltzik's blog much beyond his using pseudonyms and sock puppets which I find a quantum level worse, and so might you. Such that your editor's statement,

"an internal inquiry found no inaccurate reporting in his postings in his blog or on the Web"

while being technically true, its finding is false. Hiltzik has been inaccurate and worse in his blog, even appearing to overtly lie.

This involves Hiltzik's claims in his Costa Mesa/Immigration post, in which he falsely alleges somethings about what the SS Trustees themselves actually say overtly, and allegedly say via a Table, in their annual 2005 report which Hiltzik refers to:

Hiltzik: "Let's not forget that as the American workforce ages in an era of low birthrates, new workers will have to come from somewhere. What's [the] difference (according to the Social Security Trustees) between a Social Security system on the glide path to insolvency and one that remains fully funded into the distant future? The first is based on annual immigration of 900,000, one third of them classified today as illegal. The second is based on annual immigration of 1.3 million, about half of them in today's "illegal" category. (See this table from the 2005 annual report, and compare the "intermediate" projection to the "low cost" projection." This is a pretty dramatic claim.

But the Social Security Trustees actually say baldly in their intro to the Tables in their 2005 annual report Hiltzik links to:

"The estimates are not intended to be specific predictions of the future financial status of the OASDI program, but rather, they are intended to be indicators of the expected trend and a reasonable range of future income and cost, under a variety of plausible demographic and economic conditions."

It is only a qualitative range the Trustees put forth as likely possible scenarios, given estimates of certain classes of figures, and one not involving dollar cost vs revenue at all. So the SS Trustees don't say that any of the scenarios they present in the Table[s] will produce SS solvency or insolvency, as HIltzik claims. They instead specifically deny they are saying anything at all about the overall financial health of the System.

Much less do the Trustees say via the Table[s] that solvency or the financial health of the System is even very much controlled by the specific immigration numbers they estimate, and certainly not to the point where certain yearly increases in numbers of new immigrants, whether total or illegal, bode the solution to SS woes. The Trustees don't say it, and the Table[s] don't say it.

For example, I don't think there is hardly any way one could reasonably conclude that an extra 400,000 new immigrants in a year would cover the cost of an extra 1,000,000 new SS retirees. But this is exactly what Hiltzik says the Trustees and the Table[s] say.

[Some minor points involving Hiltzik's "accuracy": there isn't even anywhere in the Table Hiltzik refers to that the number of illegals gets very close to the 650,000/yr. total involving the increase Hiltzik refers to as "[the] difference" which will make the System "fully funded into the distant future". Nor does this Table show any year where the illegals would be half the total number of immigrants, which Hiltzik says flatly the table says might occur.]

The claim that certain numbers of new immigrants will determine SS solvency concerns some important issues for the country, making Hiltzik's deception especially galling and even reprehensible, imo. To top it off, he is represented as a "financial" writer.

Regarding the difference between pseudonyms and "sock puppets", there is a long and proud tradition of using pen names in journalism -- Mark Twain and Miss Manners immediately come to mind.

So long as each identity stands on its own, the ethical implications of this anonymity are fairly benign -- although there is a well-known anecdote where an issue of Astounding SF contained five stories by the same author, under five different names.

Hiltzik, by contrast, did not create a full persona with the idea of honestly entering the forum of discussion. Instead, he used multiple "mannequin" personas to echo his views and attempt to bolster their credibility. In doing so, he also revealed the weakness in his personal support of these views -- in that he felt the need for a set of personal cheerleaders to echo his points.

Now the LAT is fully within their rights to cancel his column, close his blog, suspend him, or whatever -- after all, there is a business to be run. I find myself concerned, however, about the human element here. There is a wide spectrum of behavior between acting in a responsible, professional manner...and talking to the invisible while pushing a shopping cart through a park with all one's belongings. Unfortunately, someone who feels unable to articulate their views and defend them without a manufactured chorus of agreement seems a wee bit closer to the latter.

To look at this from an ethics standpoint, Hiltzik did something bad that embarassed himself and his paper, and has given the powers-that-be a bit of heartburn. That's bad. From a mental health viewpoint, I certainly hope that he is getting the attention he so clearly needs.

I never heard of Mr. Hiltzik prior to this kerfuffle, but I just read his bio. That a grown man with his experience and credentials would assume fake identities (did each come with a unique voice and personality?) in order to compensate for the perceived inadequacies of his real (or is it?) identity is just a little too Sybil for me.

"It's my firm belief and experience that the quality of discussion improves immensely when people avoid the cheap courage of pseudonymity when tossing around insults."

Perhaps, but isn't this just a little nonsensical? I have commented (I don't blog) under my own name since day one. I chose to do so as a self-editing tool (and even then it doesn't always work) because mine is a one of a kind type of name. If you know someone who goes by the name below, that person's gonna be me.

However, I could just as easily call myself Allison Porchnik. You're satisfied because it's my "real name" (and how do you know it isn't?), but I'm still free to be as cheaply courageous as that little devil perched on my left shoulder would have me be because none of that outrageous behaviour will accrue to the real me. The Internet is an anonymous kind of place. Real names, pseudonyms, who's to say?

Kyda hit it on the head. The idea that the pseudonyms are the problem is missing the point., and at worst, is an outright denial of the reality of the Hiltzik situation. It's all about the integrity, people! Can we not ask journalists and others we trust to use new technology responsibly? Must we nanny-state everything? If the Times chooses to do so, then it just proves that it does not get the internet.

A good example of a major news site with comments that WORKS, is digg.com. Thousands of hits a day, and hundreds of comments hit the stories that are posted. However, the comments are moderated by the community. If someone is a cad or a dupe, he is consistantly modded down by the community itself. Slashdot follows a similar model. And the crazy thing is, it works!

These publications "get" the internet. If your problem is saturation and the unsavory characters it brings, then empower the reading community to decide who is misbehaving! Nobody likes to read dreck, and nobody likes to let others read dreck, either. You don't form a successful web-based readership by lording and striking down everyone who doesn't abide by your arbitrary rules. You enable freedom and take measures to encourage responsibility and pride in your readers. Make them feel responsible for the things they read. That is the X-factor in why online publications are seemingly getting more popular than dead-tree.

The only downside being that whatever Michael Hiltzik wrote during his tenure (as himself or his many imaginary friends), would most likely be modded down as "trolling", but ah well.

Oh, and one more thing about anonymity, "magic rings", and the like. Puh-leez. If all I told you was that my name was Chad Harris, you still wouldn't know who I was. I could be (Google searching...) associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Boise State, or I could be a soap star. I'm still no more invisible than I would be if I used my preferred moniker "Arch Radish" (which I am going to use in protest if I feel the need to post here again.)

Once again, THE SYSTEM is not to blame. Uncouth abusers of it are.

Matt,

If you were a shopkeeper, and you knew that there were a readily identifiable group of people, who, on average, were convicted of crimes against property more frequently per-capita than the general populace, would you request that this entire group not enter your shop?

Would it matter if you had personal experience running other stores and that this experience had reinforced your observation that some members of that group were trouble-makers?

hiltzik is apparently a fan of sumo wrestling, so i thought i'd liken this situation to a sumo match:
in this corner of the dohyo, the pissant but pumped up little wrestler patterico, facing the mighty mikekoshi, marquee wrestler for the most powerful newspaper in the west. after the ceremonial bows, the outcome should be predetermined, no?
no. the little guy picked up the star headliner and tossed him out of the ring so hard that his diaper came off when he hit the ground. not a pretty sight, but a funny sight to be sure. we have a new yokozuna!
switching to a sport i actually know something about, when a college football coach records an unbelievable upset of a stronger team and is asked about this after the game, he usually invokes one of two stock lines, either:
"that's why pencils come with erasers" or
"that's why we play the games".
hiltzik's performance in this bout opened a window into an insecure soul, trepidatious, perhaps even lonely, and definitely in need of imaginary friends to keep it company and provide moral support. i suspect there's more to this story than the times has disclosed. did hiltzik appropriate the identity of his colleague from his moscow days, masha the real working journalist? this would be even worse than hacking into her email.

Our moderator wrote: "Please use your real names. That's a request, not a demand. TakeFive, JJ, Flap, kcom, Dafydd ab Hugh, stackja -- I'm looking at you! It's my firm belief and experience that the quality of discussion improves immensely when people avoid the cheap courage of pseudonymity when tossing around insults. Would you say whatever it is you want to say about Hiltzik or anyone else if you had to stake your name behind it? That's what I want to know."

Please note that while I signed myself "Dana," the url I gave takes you to my site, which has my full name posted. I don't know if you'd consider that a pseudonym or not.

Normally, on blogs which ask for a name, e-mail address and url, the posted comment has the url embedded under the author's name; I consider that a sufficient link. Since this particular blog operates differently, I'll go ahead and put my last name down as well.

“Now wait just a goldarn minute here! Even though this commenter admitted Hiltzik would be "unlikely" to crawl through someone's window, he's still using me as an example that commenters might reasonably have something real to fear from using their real names....

...Please include me out of this nervous Nellies club.”

OK - turn in your club card at the courtesy desk.

Cathy, I didn’t intend to make you into a victim, I was merely trying to cite a relevant example and this seemed to do the job - even if it was a somewhat weak example at that. I’ve read enough of your stuff to know you’re not fainthearted.

“As someone who's experienced among the very worst of trolls -- not only those verminy Daily Kos readers who for the past few days have been wishing me dead because I'm a Republican, but also my daughter's truly nuts ex-high school teacher who for almost two years has maintainted an angry site about us...”

And that’s my point - it’s so easy today. Technology has provided an order of magnitude more leverage over the poison pen letter. As the sole provider for my family, I’m not willing to risk that some nut job will flood my company’s website with inflammatory comments about me. It’s a small company, with reasonable people, but it wouldn’t take much for them to say “We like you, but...”

So for now, postings to the cacti society will get my real name; political discussions receive a pseudonym.

Lastly, despite my criticism, I have great sympathy for Mr. Hiltzik. I believe I read he has young children and I would not like to see his livelihood threatened by a childish, but somewhat harmless mistake. Those of us that are opinionated know how easy it is to get sucked into the web, and Hiltzik stumbled here. But I recognize the Times needs to maintain the integrity of its brand, and Hiltzik’s transgressions don’t reflect well on the paper.

Dafydd ab Hugh -- I apologized to you above.

J. Peden -- There's no such thing as "enough heat."

Kyda -- The point of requesting (not demanding, mind you, but requesting) real names, is not to create a 100% foolproof system to make sure that indeed everyone is using their real names, but rather to simply encourage a better conversation through the magic of transparency. That's it. It's not a rigid rule, it's an encouragement, and I find it odd that anyone would get exercised about it.

Chad -- I'd love to move toward a Slashdot model; I personally think that's the future (and a helluva lot more efficient than having to approve comments). But we're a huge institution for which it's difficult to make radical-ish technological changes, so we're starting with baby steps here in the Opinion Dept.

anon2 -- I'm not "request[ing] that [an] entire group not enter" this site. One way you can tell this, is that you are a member of that group, and not only did you successfully enter the site, but now I'm responding to you. Using real names is a request, not a demand. The only people here required to use their real names are myself and my colleagues.

Dana -- Yes, sorry, I personally do consider first names + links to home pages (particularly those which include real names) more than ample demonstration of transparency.

Just adding to the discussion about using pseudonyms, can you imagine anyone using their real name to start a comment thus:

"As an ex-Muslim, I..."

There are many valid reasons not to post under your own name.

Hiltzik's blog was a big nothing. He rarely got ten comments to his infrequent stories. Most of the comments were negative. His responses to comments were juvenile.

Makes "the" Pulitzer Prize cheap. Well, the prize is named for the father of yellow journalism. Maybe Hiltzik, WaPost, NYTimes are perfect recipients. AhOooGah Dive, Dive...

If you want news, go to the blogs.

Mike,

I am a small time blogger but I'd like to point out to you that even I am subject to threats:

"I’m the big red headed bearded guy in Knoxville, Tn. holding the legal class 3 full auto and the AR-15 with the 40 round mag. I’ve been trying for years to provoke one of you rightwing pu–ies(edited) into coming after me! Here’s your chance smegma breath! Come on down and take your best shoot(sic) Conservanazi! I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to drill a .223 or a .308 through a Rightwankers inbred, smegma encrusted, head!! Really want to bag a Lib or are you just another macho 101st keyboarding Chickenhawk!??? - Larry Henderson, Knoxville, Tn., USA"

Anonymity keeps people and their families safe from wackos like this (there are more than you think) so let them use it when appropriate.

Sean is my real name. That is all anyone need know.

First of all, thanks to the LAT and Matt Welch for opening this issue for discussion.

I join the chorus in being a bit disappointed at this paper for not taking a stand on the intentions of Hiltzik for creating multiple identities. I agree that the anonymity wasn't the problem.

I initially was also inclined to think that the public humiliation was more than enough punishment and no further action needed to be taken. However, the more I though about it, the more I felt betrayed and more than a little puffed up with indignation.

Journalists constantly use phrases such as 'anonymous sources', 'a credible source', 'most people', etc. Usually when called on this, the response is something along the lines of they stand behind it, they have rigorously fact checked, always a reference to the 1st amendment, blah blah blah.

I think there have been enough newspaper scandals to know that they often fall down on the job. So the public has a right to expect more from journalists and a duty to call them on it.

This may look like a pretty insignificant thing on the surface to some, but taken with everything else, it leads me to seriously question the credibility of the media.

Michael Hiltzik was re-assigned by the Times a little over 12 years ago when he was discovered hacking into his colleagues'email, while working at the Times' Moscow bureau.

And now he has been discovered to be creating phony third persons to praise his own work, and slander his critics, both on his LA Times blog, as well as other blogs.

WHY does the Times insist upon keeping such an ethically-challenged individual on its payroll ?

We're not talking about "youthful indiscretions" here. Hiltzik is probably closer to 60, than 50.

There's a Freudian aspect to this tragicomedy which I intend to use as a teaching tool in the psychology classes which I teach.
That is that Hiltzik has made a profession of holding business and government to the fire for perceived ethics lapses, yet he will probably be long remembered for as the guy whom sabotaged his own career with his inability to conform to a standard of professional ethics.

Perhaps, his professional career has long been a theapeutic attempt to better understand his own lack of character.

Everyone needs to get a grip and grow up! You know so what a guys bends a little. You don't think most of the Times journalist actually writes the whole, that they fairly give all sides of a particular story. It seems it's like the pot calling the kettle black.

Hiltzik's style is taylor-made for Kos or Huffington. Why the LA Times can't do better is beyond me. If the Moscow e-mail story is true then there's a pattern here which will surely emerge again.

No one has correctly identified Michael Hiltzik's most culpable act.

No, not the sock-puppetry, though that was bad enough.

Hiltzik's worst journalistic sin was his response AFTER Patterico had exposed him.

Once Patterico had the goods on him, instead of manfully fessing up to the facts Patterico had so thoroughly documented, Hiltzik posted on his Golden State blog a response ("On Anonymity in Blogland") that attempted to blur the issue (a blurring that the LAT and other mainstream media thereafter more or less continued).

That hubris in the face of the truth was what disqualified Hiltzik from any position that would presume to make any claim upon the public trust.

A side note on pseudonyms: I blog under a "nom de blog" for a good and simple reason: In the present divisive political climate, one's political views can often lead to one losing not only friends and lovers, but also jobs and professional business relationships. It seems that there some folks on the left who believe that conservatism is a moral fault only slightly less blameworthy than pederasty. I've lost one job because my conservative views were deemed unacceptable. I'd rather not repeat that experience.

Having learned that lesson at the cost of my livelihood, I now keep my political views to myself in the workplace--or share them only with those I know I can trust. My "nom de blog," Bathus, can easily be pierced by anyone who cares to take a little trouble. But that pseudonym provides at least a thin layer of protection against being exposed as an evil conservative by some snoopy co-worker idly googling my name.

>>>Allowing a halfwitted far right idiot like Patrick Frey to bamboozle the LA Times shows how far you have fallen now that you've become the AAA farm club for Chicago's best litter-box liner/cage-bottom cover/toilet-paper substitute.

Hiltzik, is that you?

He deserved to be fired.

LAO's description of the Baquet appearance at the Festival of Books sated any angry need for justice in the Hiltzik controversy. Hiltzik's not just embarassed; the earning power of his opinion has been substantially diminished. The MSM employer has been forced think clearly and publicly about how truth gets written and who writes it, and seems to have come down on the good side of things. What else does anyone want out of this?

Matt, it's great to see you giving afternoons to this, but it always seemed like comment-nannying was your least favorite part of bloggery. Those of us who love these little slapfasts worry that either the spam or the stupidity will soon wear you down.

I have yet to read of anyone commenting that this newly announced LAT policy prohibiting anonymous or pseudonymous posts on web logs could have consequences for other reporters at the LA Times. There is at least one who has routinely made web log posts and submitted book reviews under phony names, commenting approvingly about his own work, and ridiculing opposing views, for the past couple of years. Ironically, he is a reporter Mr. Frey thinks highly of, unlike Mr. Hiltzik. Once the brouhaha dies down about Mr. Hiltzik, it will be interesting to see if the policy is enforced with equal rigor toward this reporter, and other reporters at the paper who may acted similarly.

Matt -

First, thanks for the opportunity at this forum to write. Perhaps this is one of the first steps in the Times' 12-step program back to credibility. A couple of other steps might be a more precise explanation of what Hiltzik did to warrant his suspension (no different than a reporter writing a letter to the editor that praises his own work) and a thorough accounting of the process used to examine his earlier work for any inaccurate reporting.

I've noticed that the comments at Hiltzik's blog have been frozen at 32 for his feeble defense of his actions and 0 for the Editor's Note regarding his suspension. Are those the actual totals or did the Times freeze the comments section. If it did, why?

And, let’s face it - Hiltzik is a product of the liberal culture at the LA Times. It's hard to see anything wrong if the vast majority of your colleagues agree with everything you write. Like so many left-leaning institutions, the Times demands diversity in every regard except one: That of thought. So often it seems, if reporters/editors want a story to be true, it just doesn't undergo as vigorous a scrutiny as other stories might.

The line between the editorial pages and news pages is increasing blurred with the Times among the leaders at this obfuscation. Hiltzik is just the latest example.

I think it's difficult for so much of the legacy media to realize that instead of fighting the oppressors, they have become the oppressors.

William Carpenter
Del Mar, Ca

In the interests of full disclosure - I will return legally return to my birth name of William Hamilton by the end of this month.

Ah, the guy obsessed with defending the good name of Michel Thomas. Nice to see you.

Baquet's discussion of his reasoning behind Hiltzik's punishment was illuminating. Did that explanation, made at the LA Times Festival of Books, ever get into the Times itself?

My last comment was directed to the balance the scales guy.

Matt, it's encouraging to see civil responses to challenges to the Times' position. I like your approach. Not every blogger is right (or, arguably, even in their right mind) and challenges will arise. Dealing with them respectfully is something that Hiltzik just couldn't do. He was the wrong choice for an early LA Times venture into the blogosphere. Honest discourse and frank discussion of opposing viewpoints will, I hope, become the lingua franca of the "New" Los Angeles Times. I'm hoping that happens--although there's a long way for the Times to go before it gets there.

Over at his place this morning, Patterico addressed a question to me personally (full disclosure, me and “other lefties) and thus stirred me somewhat from my fatique with L'affaire Hiltzik. As I pontificated over at Patterico's site, I'd be