In response to an email from the NUJ New Media email list (the general gist being that a) why should NightJack want to remain anonymous, since running a blog is about getting readers, right? and b), that NightJack should have expected to have his anonymity busted at some point) I wrote some thoughts at 8AM on the train to London. Here’s what I wrote:
I’d question whether every blogger’s primary intention is for people to read what they are writing. Especially when you’re talking about someone working within a high profile organisation who may have gripes about his work. How many of us have been in a job that is frustrating for organisational or bureacratic issues? All of us. However, that doesn’t mean it’s justifiable for every individual to start an anonymous blog about their employer.
Say you’re a call centre employee working in London on minimum wage. You’re working for a private company, so no public money is subsidising your work, and you’ve probably signed some form of non-disclosure agreement about information you procure at work. There’s very little justifiable reason for you to start an anonymous blog decrying the organisation that you work for.
Now, say that same organisation starts paying you less than minimum wage, stops paying for overtime, and begins employing people under 16. You have a huge incentive then to reveal this information. Its not hard to see why someone in this situation who has no easy way out might start an anonymous blog. They certainly would not be doing it for wide readership (at first). Most likely they would want to experience a sense of catharsis, and connect with other people in similarly hopeless situations (both of which are true in the case of NightJack).
I’d also suggest that there are some very obvious reasons why someone in this hypothetical situation would not go to a journalist or alert authorities to the situation. One, they may not have or known an easy way to get in touch with a journalist. Two, they may not trust a journalist, even if they do know a way to get in touch with one. The same reasons apply regarding the proper authorities.
If we expect privacy from the prying eyes of the Government, then surely individuals who do a public service and reveal information in the public interest should be able to expect some privacy from the News organisations that claim to act in their interest! We may not be able to expect the courts to agree with this principle, but I’d have thought a newspaper like The Times would understand and accept it!
On the point about the distinction in privacy between publishing on your private blog and on someone else’s server (or via a journalist), I think this is a clear case of how the law has failed to keep up with technology and society. We didn’t have such a widespread network of “self-publishers” ten years ago: now we do. So the rights to privacy that anonymous sources enjoy should unquestionably be extended to individual anonymous bloggers.
