In the noise of #Groggate, don't forget those silenced. I've been tracking the discussion on the outing of Greg Jericho as author of the Grog's Gamut blog by The Australian journalist James Massola.
In the last seven days there have been over 100 posts, articles and interviews and nearly 2,000 tweets on the topic - discussing freedom of speech, anonymity, media power and public interest. Few have mentioned one of the first claims made by The Australian; "The prolific blogger shows a strong preference for the ALP, despite the Public Service code of conduct stating that "the APS is apolitical, performing its functions in an impartial and professional manner". " Grog disputed this in Spartacus no more, his final post last Monday before falling silent. Whether Grog's voice remains silent is up to him and his employer - his Department and behind that the Australian Public Service. Across the world many talented public servants operate blogs. How much public sector experience and diversity has been lost to our public debates due to Grog's outing? Outing an amateur « Dave from Albury's Weblog. The decision to publish the name and workplace of the blogger Grog, author of Grog’s Gamut, by The Australian’s James Massola has been dominating not just conversation on twitter and on many Australian blogs, but has continued to generate pageviews for the national broadsheet.
There’s a lot of back and forth about the ethics of unmasking an anonymous blogger, but I think a lot of it is talking at cross purposes because most of the journalists genuinely do not understand why a blogger would use a pseudonym and therefore begin with the attitude that there is something that needs to be uncovered. The first thing that needs to be dispelled is that this is about anonymity. Like most bloggers who choose to use a pseudonym, as I originally did, Grog created a consistent persona that he presented via his blog and on twitter, which is nothing like the type of anonymous hit and run trolling that often shows up in comment threads. Like this: Like Loading... Controversial political blogger unmasked as a federal public servant.
Grog's Gamut has been outed as a Canberra public servant.
Source: The Australian THE anonymous blogger who prompted Mark Scott to redirect the ABC's federal election coverage is a Canberra public servant. Media can reveal that high-profile blogger Grog's Gamut is actually Greg Jericho, a public servant who spends his days working in the film section of the former Department of Environment, Heritage, Water and the Arts. The identity of Mr Jericho, who shot to prominence after making some sharp observations about media coverage of the 2010 election and subsequently has written for the ABC's The Drum website, has triggered much speculation in recent weeks on Twitter. Mr Jericho, who was the subject of intrigue at the Media 140 conference in Canberra last Thursday as an "embedded" but anonymous blogger, wore a nametag that gave his first name but not his last.
At one point in the conference, several participants stood up and jokingly declared themselves to be "Grog's Gamut". Anonymous rants have some losing faith in social media sites. IS it understandable for politicians not to want to engage on social media sites if what they get there includes a lot of anonymous abuse?
Or should they, as truncated Twitter parlance would have it, HTFU* and take the bad (trolls) with the good (voters who genuinely want to interact)? Federal opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey (@JoeHockey) has caused online debate after writing this month: "I admit I am losing faith in Twitter (& BLOGS) because the anonymous commentary is often banal, nasty and meaningless. No name = cowardice . . . In my Office an anonymous letter is thrown out on receipt. (Same goes for a letter with a fake or insincere signature!). " Hockey's complaint also came up in Canberra on Thursday at Media 140, a seminar on social media, journalism and politics or, as one tweeter described it: "nerd Woodstock, with hashtags instead of hash". Twittersphere hit by storm over whether political blogger had a right to anonymity. Grog's Gamut has been outed as a Canberra public servant.
Source: The Australian Source: The Australian THE Australian's outing of political blogger Greg Jericho, better known as Grog's Gamut, has unleashed a firestorm of protest on Twitter. By 10am today, hundreds of tweets had been sent under the #groggate hashtag, defending the federal public servant and his right to anonymity. And the blogger has written a passionate defence of his right to blog under a pseudonym. “Whatever you think of Massola's decision to out me (and it was certainly not my decision or preference), I will just say he has known who I was since last November. The row follows The Australian revealing today that Mr Jericho is a public servant working in the film section of the former Department of Environment, Heritage, Water and the Arts.
Mr Jericho shot to prominence with his observations about media coverage of the 2010 election, prompting ABC chief Mark Scott to redirect the ABC’s election coverage. Grog's Gamut.