1.12.2006

Blogger's Identity Exposed by Lawsuit

Interesting - from Minneapolis Star Tribune:

A feisty anonymous Minnesota political blogger has unmasked himself in the face of a lawsuit that claims his blog defamed a local public relations firm.
The case against Michael Brodkorb and his website, www.minnesotademocratsexposed.com, could break new legal ground in the Wild West frontier of blogging.

Lawyers who filed the suit say that Web logs and other new media should be held to the same standards of accountability as traditional media and journalism. Brodbkorb, a former operative for the Minnesota Republican Party, pledges to protect his source and to keep his website going.

The suit alleges that Brodkorb, citing an unnamed source, defamed the St. Paul-based public relations firm New School Communications when he posted a claim that New School had become publicly critical of the congressional campaign of Coleen Rowley only after Rowley rejected a contract with the firm.

Despite being told that New School does not perform political campaign work, Brodkorb, the suit says, continues to make the claim, even though his source "may, in fact, be a fabrication."
Old time readers here know while I do not have anything against anonymous blogging, I think this is a case where the folks who feel he has wronged them do have a right to face their accuser, so to speak.

But it's a real gray area that becomes more of an issue when you're getting paid for the work. The "former Republican operative" part bothers me a little because it's hard to tell what it means. It also raises questions of whether like a Jeff Gannon, he's taking money to sell his opinion. Former means little; many of the bloggers, particularly on the right, do take very big money to blog nasties about anyone left of Attila the Hun. I do not see the trend anymore near as prevalent among moderates and left of center bloggers and blogs. But the rightie types also are far less likely to disclose the fact that they're being financed to spew.