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Here's the thing about traditional journalists and their organizations: they have to maintain a relationship with these people. If they ask hard questions tha

Here's the thing about traditional journalists and their organizations: they have to maintain a relationship with these people. If they ask hard questions that might make the candidates look bad they don't get invited back or pay other access penalties. Random people don't suffer from this problem. But they also don't generally have the inside knowledge to ask the real questions. Solution: anonymize the professional journalists and their organizations. No one to blame, no one to retaliate against.

wtallis 11y ago
> "But they also don't generally have the inside knowledge to ask the real questions." What do you mean by this? That Reddit can't do what Woodward and Bernstein did?
- clavalle 11y ago
  You might get people who intimately know an issue from reddit, but they won't know the politics or political players as well. Also, if you do get someone that intimately knows an issue from reddit it is likely from a very personal point of view. Sometimes that's not a problem but you'd have to really think about how their personal agenda colors the question...with strangers this is not always clear. Professional journalists are supposed to be somewhat removed which provides useful perspective -- or at least a perspective that is more generally applicable. So, no, they wouldn't be able to do what Woodward and Bernstein did. BUT they could offer valuable insight and perspective that contributes to the whole that would be hard to fish out any other way so I definitely wouldn't dismiss them.
SapphireSun 11y ago
That's an interesting idea. How would you get a candidate to agree to an anonymous interview though? EDIT: One way to take the pressure off is to tell the candidate, your interviewer will be one of these people but we won't tell you which one. However, I think they truly value the ability to retaliate so that is probably not enough. EDIT 2: Also, anonymizing journalists deprives them of the credit they'd get from a tough interview. While I imagine many would participate out of civic duty, they'd really like to be able to get (timely) credit without being retaliated against.
- clavalle 11y ago
  >How would you get a candidate to agree to an anonymous interview though? Don't tell them it will be anonymous :) Just kidding. Sell it as a new format that is more likely to get at real answers and pick some candidates that aren't afraid of that. Let them tout their willingness as an indicator of integrity and question their rivals. Have a group of some of the best journalists in the business behind the curtain...as long as there are enough of them their anonymity is secure. If they want to claim a question, let them. It wouldn't be hard. Have their home network have a envelope of the wording of the question that they can reveal in real time.
im3w1l 11y ago
One aspect is that with reddit, candidates can completely avoid uncomfortable questions.
- zf00002 11y ago
  They could also plant their own people asking the questions they want to answer.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  That can backfire sometimes, though, as the Rampart incident shows. We need more Rampart reactions.
- Zuider 11y ago
  Or sympathetic mods can delete awkward questions and ban the person posting those questions before anyone can see them. There have been such posts with more [deleted] comments than visible ones. With CSS one can hide the fact that comments have even been deleted. Combined with the moderator bot, a user can be effectively shadow-banned from an entire subreddit.
pnut 11y ago
I believe this is the reasoning behind The Economist anonymizing their journalists, which they have always done.
wutbrodo 11y ago
> Random people don't suffer from this problem. But they also don't generally have the inside knowledge to ask the real questions. Solution: anonymize the professional journalists and their organizations. No one to blame, no one to retaliate against. I had the same thought but a different conclusion: if crowdsourced interviews make a candidate look bad, and it happens a few times, candidates won't "invite back" the crowdsourced platforms. The current system works the way it does for a reason: short of making it mandatory, politicians will only conduct interviews if they feel like it's a net win for shaping the narrative. A journalistic entity that keeps making politicians "lose" at the interview will very soon become an entity without access.

wtallis 11y ago

> "But they also don't generally have the inside knowledge to ask the real questions." What do you mean by this? That Reddit can't do what Woodward and Bernstein did?

clavalle 11y ago
You might get people who intimately know an issue from reddit, but they won't know the politics or political players as well. Also, if you do get someone that intimately knows an issue from reddit it is likely from a very personal point of view. Sometimes that's not a problem but you'd have to really think about how their personal agenda colors the question...with strangers this is not always clear. Professional journalists are supposed to be somewhat removed which provides useful perspective -- or at least a perspective that is more generally applicable. So, no, they wouldn't be able to do what Woodward and Bernstein did. BUT they could offer valuable insight and perspective that contributes to the whole that would be hard to fish out any other way so I definitely wouldn't dismiss them.

SapphireSun 11y ago

That's an interesting idea. How would you get a candidate to agree to an anonymous interview though? EDIT: One way to take the pressure off is to tell the candidate, your interviewer will be one of these people but we won't tell you which one. However, I think they truly value the ability to retaliate so that is probably not enough. EDIT 2: Also, anonymizing journalists deprives them of the credit they'd get from a tough interview. While I imagine many would participate out of civic duty, they'd really like to be able to get (timely) credit without being retaliated against.

clavalle 11y ago
>How would you get a candidate to agree to an anonymous interview though? Don't tell them it will be anonymous :) Just kidding. Sell it as a new format that is more likely to get at real answers and pick some candidates that aren't afraid of that. Let them tout their willingness as an indicator of integrity and question their rivals. Have a group of some of the best journalists in the business behind the curtain...as long as there are enough of them their anonymity is secure. If they want to claim a question, let them. It wouldn't be hard. Have their home network have a envelope of the wording of the question that they can reveal in real time.

im3w1l 11y ago

One aspect is that with reddit, candidates can completely avoid uncomfortable questions.

zf00002 11y ago
They could also plant their own people asking the questions they want to answer.
waterlesscloud 11y ago
That can backfire sometimes, though, as the Rampart incident shows. We need more Rampart reactions.
Zuider 11y ago
Or sympathetic mods can delete awkward questions and ban the person posting those questions before anyone can see them. There have been such posts with more [deleted] comments than visible ones. With CSS one can hide the fact that comments have even been deleted. Combined with the moderator bot, a user can be effectively shadow-banned from an entire subreddit.

pnut 11y ago

I believe this is the reasoning behind The Economist anonymizing their journalists, which they have always done.

wutbrodo 11y ago

> Random people don't suffer from this problem. But they also don't generally have the inside knowledge to ask the real questions. Solution: anonymize the professional journalists and their organizations. No one to blame, no one to retaliate against. I had the same thought but a different conclusion: if crowdsourced interviews make a candidate look bad, and it happens a few times, candidates won't "invite back" the crowdsourced platforms. The current system works the way it does for a reason: short of making it mandatory, politicians will only conduct interviews if they feel like it's a net win for shaping the narrative. A journalistic entity that keeps making politicians "lose" at the interview will very soon become an entity without access.