Joshua Treviño

K. Daniel Glover has a fair and judicious piece at National Journal on the experience of Online Integrity. My only quibble with the piece is his characterization of OI as “all but dead,” by virtue of the lack of activity on the OI site itself. OI stands on its own, independent of any person, group, or activity: it is a statement, not a blog; and if its adherents do not discuss it often, it is no more “dead” than a baptism is irrelevant if not referred to daily.

For the record, please find below the full text of the e-mail I sent to Glover upon his request for the formulation and background of OI.

Sure thing. I can even forward you all the e-mails in which the concept was discussed, developed and assessed, if you like. I’m happy to turn the whole batch over to you. This would give you all the contacts, dates, information, etc. Would that be something you’re interested in?

In brief, the story is this (and it’s all corroborated in the e-mails I’ll forward you if you want them):

1) Having seen what happened to the families of Erick Erickson and Ben Domenech when the online left went after each — and operating on the assumption that similar things had happened to leftists — I conceived of OI while on business travel in the last week of April.

2) I floated the concept to Mike Krempasky (RS), Erick Erickson (RS), Armando (dKos) and mcjoan (dKos) and received their unanimous support for a nonpartisan, nonideological code of practice. (Later, at the suggestion of Krempasky and the agreement of the group, this was changed to a statement of principles.)

3) I invited a group of c.15 bloggers (I believe there was a 9-6 left-right split, but I forget the exact numbers) to help formulate and eventually publicize the concept. With the exception of Oliver Willis, who sent a rather petulant e-mail charging us with covering for Michelle Malkin (again, I can forward this to you), and Georgia10 of dKos, who remained silent, all the invitees agreed to participate.

4) Matt Stoller, one of the initial invitees, asked if he could share the concept with others. I readily agreed — my assumption was that he would share it with his colleagues in the online left, and I wanted this to happen, as I strongly felt that absent that milieu, this effort would be crippled. I was right: he posted it to a Google Groups distro list that he runs called Townhouse. It must be emphasized that Townhouse is, by all appearances, the internal brain trust of the big-time online left. I believe Garance Franke-Ruta of TAP was once on it; and Maryscott O’Conner of MyLeftWing.com was once on it (more on her shortly).

5) The reaction at Townhouse was strongly negative. Several of the big left bloggers were upset that they were not invited (apparently Markos Moulitsas fell into this category), and others felt strongly that it was a right-wing trick. Rationales for opposition fell broadly along the following lines:

a) As there was no example of online-left malfeasance with regard to respect for privacy, adherence was unnecessary, and left-wing participation would only lend moral cover to the right. (This is, in fact, untrue — to give just two examples, Duncan Black has passed out personal contact information at his site in the past, and John Aravosis helped publicize Michelle Malkin’s home address and phone number this past April.)

b) Coming from me (ie, the right), it must be a trick or a trap.

c) This was a direct effort to spare Michelle Malkin the consequences of her publishing the phone numbers of those UC-Santa Cruz students several weeks back (I assume you know about this, but if you need background, let me know). Ironically, Malkin refused to sign on to the final statement of principles, and she and Charles Johnson of LGF remain the sole right-wing bloggers to reject an invitation to OI.

d) OI was merely a ploy to hammer those who did not sign on. (Which, if true, might make one think that signing on would be a good idea!)

e) Finally — and this line did not emerge on Townhouse, but later in the left-blogs — OI was rejected as being a profoundly hypocritical project of my own. It is, in fact, completely true that I have a long history of exposing the identities of would-be pseudonymous left-wing bloggers and commenters. And it is further true that I have generally treated the venomous left — and dull-witted right (see my history versus LGF and Steve Sailer) — with open contempt that at points trespassed beyond what OI would allow. This is no secret — and this is why, in the original OI statement of principles, it is acknowledged that many of the endorsers have not lived up to the OI statement in the past. Past rectitude was never a precondition of participation (would we have invited Malkin or the dKossers if it was?) — the point is to set boundaries for the future. I do want to note that since OI’s debut, in the few cases — one, actually — where a leftist has complained that I violated his privacy in the past, I have offered that person an apology. I even offered the blogger Billmon an apology unsolicited. There is no question in my mind that the persons in question are men of low character: but that is irrelevant to the need to respect their privacy, lest no one’s be respected.

6) With the reaction against OI at Townhouse, left-bloggers began dropping out of the effort en masse. Stoller, previously supportive, sent some e-mails which I find frankly dishonest (again, that I can forward to you) about his reservations, and his decision to withdraw. SusanG of dKos, previously an avid supporter, e-mailed to rescind her participation. Jonathan Singer of MyDD, upon learning of his blogging colleagues’ opposition, also e-mailed to rescind his participation. The few left-bloggers that did stay on board either laid low and said nothing (ie, mcjoan) or were ejected from Townhouse for their refusal to conform. This last was, in fact, the fate of Maryscott O’Conner of My Left Wing, whom you should speak with. Notably, in the end, the only two significant left-bloggers who remained willing to speak publicly in favor of the privacy concept were Ms O’Conner and Armando of dKos.

7) Since OI’s debut, we have had just under 250 blogs signing on as endorsing the principles. (I can get an exact count if you need it.) We have also had a massive amount of negative publicity from the online left. In fact, I’d say that the amount of negative attention about OI from the online left outstrips the amount of positive attention from all sources by several orders of magnitude. It’s that bad.

What are the lessons, to my mind, of this effort?

A) The online left, at least, is suffused with a paranoid ethic that precludes any meaningful collaboration — even on areas of common interest — with the right. Or, in this case, with the perceived right: OI has been nonpartisan and nonideological from the start, and we made strenuous efforts to give the online left a supermajority in its deliberations. That milieu rejected the profferred opportunity — which still exists! — and thereby fulfilled its own paranoid fantasies about the “true” composition of the forces behind OI.

B) Future efforts of this type are going to have to come from perceived neutral third parties — the Media Bloggers Association, perhaps, or maybe something that the likes of Micah Sifry and Jay Rosen could put together. Now, I know Sifry and Rosen are themselves confirmed leftists: but there is simply little chance, in my admittedly biased experience, that the online right at large would react to them with the it’s-a-trap reflex in the same manner that the big-left bloggers did to me.

C) The online left is also suffused either with a profound sense of its own moral rectitude and purity of mission — or a profound insecurity about the public perception of the same. Thus, any implied need for a corrective (in this case, OI) is to be vigorously rejected.

D) Finally, any future effort must avoid the emergence of a single de facto spokesman or advocate, lest that person, rather than the endeavor itself, become the story.

I am heartened that OI has attracted so many endorsers, and I remain hopeful that it will play a small role in bringing some sanity to a medium — blogs — that too often resembles the no-holds-barred yellow press of eras past. But I am profoundly disappointed in the online left’s reaction to the concept. It is one thing to not sign on — virtue, after all, is not found in a signature — but it is another thing entirely to attack and deride the concept. That remains a source of immense regret: not for OI, but for those rejecting the opportunity to push the blogosphere in a sane or ethical direction. Sadly, they will reap as they sow in time: we have been fortunate that for all the vile actions against family members and loved ones of the online mob’s targets, no one has suffered lasting or grievous harm. But that won’t last. And when the unthinkable does occur, be it from the left or the right, how many will look back and ask whether the seemingly inevitable could have been warded off long ago?

Most resp.,
Josh Trevino

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