The sudden disappearance of The Burgh Blog ruined a lot of people’s Tuesday mornings. And among some bloggers I know, there are already discussions about what it means for the Burghosphere. Is this the end of a golden age? Why have a handful of prominent local blogs shut down lately? What does it say about Pittsburgh’s online community? It’s the old regional neurosis again: Why are all the bloggers leaving?
I’m sorry to see Burgh Blog go too. But I take some consolation in thinking this outcome was inevitable. In fact, I tend to believe PittGirl killed the blog for some of the same reasons that helped make it popular in the first place. And if this saga does say anything about Pittsburgh, it shows how far people here will go to protect “one of our own.”
I don’t think there’s any big mystery about what happened here. Judging from today’s Post-Gazette article, somebody out there was able to piece together PittGirl’s identity. Even though that person swore to keep the secret, PittGirl apparently realized the next person who did so might not be so accommodating.
Why was anonymity so important? You can find a clue in this interview PittGirl gave to Pittsburgh magazine:
Pittsburgh Magazine: Just to get this out of the way, I have no interest in finding out who you really are. It’s too much fun this way, love the mystique. But let’s deal with the elephant in the room. What’s with the anonymity?
PittGirl: I guess it is twofold. One, I have a job and that job puts me in contact with lots of people in the city. Including some of the people I write about. Secondly, I love being able to truly speak my mind and I couldn’t do that if I put my name and face out there.
I’ll be honest: That’s not the most ennobling defense of internet anonymity I’ve ever heard. And a few haters out there have criticized PittGirl for taking the piss out of people — including those she apparently works with and around — behind their backs. Then again, at least one of those critics stayed anonymous too. And the point is: Rightly or wrongly, PittGirl got to enjoy the best of both worlds. So did her readers.
In fact, when you think about it, the surprising part isn’t that PittGirl was close to being outed. The surprising part is that it took so long. But then, there were people willing to play along, including many professional journalists.
That Pittsburgh magazine interview, for example, essentially begins with the interviewer agreeing not to dig too deeply or ask uncomfortable questions, because they’re having so much fun together. Probably more interviews begin that way than many journos would want to admit. But what’s strange here is that the whole post-the-IM-chat conversation gambit essentially publicizes the fact. The whole interview screams, “See? I get it!”
That pretty much sums up PittGirl’s treatment by local media, even as they added to her celebrity. I can’t think of too many cases in which the Post-Gazette has done a 600-word Q&A — plus prominent mention in multiple follow-up pieces — with someone whose identity it refused to disclose. And it’s not because nobody over there knows who she is. I know of at least one reasonably high-ranking Post-Gazette editor who has met PittGirl for lunch.
In fact, this may be PittGirl’s most impressive accomplishment: Her popularity was such that she got some of the city’s most prominent media outlets to play by the blogosphere’s rules.
I’m not trying to raise some big ethical stink here. We’re talking about pigeons, not the Pentagon Papers. (And I’m not above keeping that sort of secret myself, as at least one or two other local bloggers can attest.) But not everyone is as willing to sacrifice their curiosity — or to keep secrets — as some local journalists were. The “mystique” as Pittsburgh magazine put it, was part of the PittGirl appeal, and her persona. Her blog played on it all the time. But for some people, inevitably, the “mystique” is going to be accompanied by a desire to have the mystery revealed.
Sooner or later this was going to happen, and it speaks to a small-town neighborliness — on the part of media too — that it took so long. But as PittGirl herself seems to have realized, even in Pittsburgh there’s a point at which you can no longer have a reasonable expectation of privacy. And by the time you’re giving interviews to a city’s leading daily newspaper and its leading monthly magazine, that point is already in your rearview mirror.
Every public figure realizes that you don’t get to choose the extent of your celebrity. Once you put your name — or even a pseudonym — out there, it no longer belongs to you alone. For example, I know of at least one local journalist who, because he made a flippant reference to PittGirl’s blog, had his sexual orientation became a subject of derision in its comments section.
No doubt the commenter who did so thought the journalist’s private life was fair game, because journalists live “in the public eye.” Maybe so. But given those rules, it’s hard to see how anyone thought The Burgh Blog itself could last forever.
This article appears in Nov 13-19, 2008.
In a sense, aren’t we all anonymous on the web, in that because our sites are open to any reader, at least some of our readers will not know us personally. So even if we use our names, the most we can offer we can the probability of consistency. I say probability because I could give my log on and password for my blog to someone else, and you could never know for sure that I had changed into a different me. This problem is not limited to blogs, print journalists, radio people and TV people are in a similar situation. In fact, Jim Quinn was rather more liberal in the past and Rush Limbaugh was an ordinary disc jockey once.
And certainly I could start an anonymous blog in addition or in place of my current blog. I could spread gossip and lies, if that is my goal, and there is no way to stop me (hmmm). I think this is particularly insidious in politics and social commentary (which is what I would have side Pitt Girl did). In politics anonymous me could say I saw the Mayor performing a lewd sexual act on Pat McMahon last night. Not only can I not be challenged because I am anonymous, but you don’t know whether to trust me or not. But would you have trusted PittGirl more than j random anonymous if she said this, since she had consistency?
In fact, I can’t say why I chose *not* to have an anonymous blog. I guess my view of blogging (and commenting on others blog posts) is like a low rent version of a letter to the editor. I get my ideas out in the public, for anyone to see and evaluate. This is probably part of the reason Chad Hermann’s blog annoyed me, by the way. No way to comment without his entire editorial control.
My wife often says that she thinks people are going to come egg our house, or kill us, because of my blog. Not that I take especially controversial positions, but sometimes I wonder if saying Obama is an ok guy might be enough to earn me homicidal enmity. Still, I think the biggest risk I seem to carry is that someone will call me a jerk or worse in a comment on my blog. I figure if they don’t sound coherent other readers will take it for how much it is worth.
Pat Dowd has argued that political debates with or even between anonymous people are not a good idea (and for the record I agree with him). Still, any random reader is entitled to consider Dr Dowd’s record since his election in evaluating (what I say his) statements (are).
I didn’t really notice PittGirl’s excesses, things she would have said that others weren’t about public figures or something. I am frankly a little puzzled that she thought that having her identity revealed would somehow damage her job (but maybe I just missed several things). I would think that an average non-profit would not mind attracting the additional publicity of having a popular blogger working for them, since non-profits depend on public donations. I suppose the Catholic Church or an ultra-conservative foundation might object, but then an outed PittGirl might find employment at a similar level in a different, more liberal non-profit (which might want her to write charitably about her work occasionally).
Basically, I think the internet may no longer be in infancy as far as anonymity in political and social commentary, but it hardly seems out of the toddler stage.
I haven’t read or heard this much hullabaloo about a Pittsburgh Website since Grant street 99 – Pittsburgh’s original blog. I recall the author of that site was dragged through the courts, as well as the mud, in an attempt to expose his identity. It’s sad to say, but perhaps PittGirl is doing the right thing if indeed her identity was threatened to be outed and she feared any sort of retaliation. I wish her the best. On the other hand, what’s the point of shutting down the blog? I mean, if her identity does get out (which I believe it will, with the backstabbers and jagoffs in this town)what’s the difference if the blog were still active? If someone has it in for her, they’ll unfortunately retaliate whether or not the blog is still operational. Quitting the blog doesn’t undo whatever it was PittGirl was afraid of in the first place, does it?