Armando has been bullied, harrassed, and (apparently) intimidated into silence by Stephen Spruiell who runs NRO's Media Blog. The question now becomes, how do we respond?
He's already starting to
feel the heat from people like me who've e-mailed him:
Let me just say a few things about the Armando controversy. First and foremost, my goal in writing about Armando's work was not to "silence" him, as many have suggested. My post raised questions about potential conflicts of interest between his work and his blogging, and I fully expected him to address those questions -- so much so that I was trying to anticipate them and prepare a rebuttal. The last thing I expected was his announcement that he was planning to quit blogging as a result of my post.
His announcement was so unexpected to me because everything I wrote was based on information that Armando himself had shared with other web sites -- his full name, his work affiliation, and his role as a blogger at Daily Kos are all listed together on these sites. He also posted his picture on his bio at another high-profile liberal blog. Yet for some reason, many are claiming that until I published this information, Armando's identity was a well-kept secret. That is simply false.
I reported on a very public dispute playing itself out in a very public forum that involved questions of journalistic integrity and conflicts of interest. That's my job. It had nothing to do with any personal desire to "silence" Armando.
This is pure BS, of course. He knew exactly what he was doing we he revealed Armando's personal information in a well-trafficked conservative blog.
So, serious question here: what do we do now? I was going to start this diary off with some personal details about little Stephen that I found quite easily with a google search and encourage others to dig up some dirt on him. Let him see how it feels to be exposed. But is that the right thing to do? Do we want to "sink to their level"? Is there any sort of alternative (non-violent, of course) action can we take?
In short, what can we do to make these creeps think twice before they pull this shit again? Jeff Goldstein and Patrick Bell have outed liberal bloggers recently as well. Something needs to be done or we risk losing our best writers and thinkers.
So, I'm tossing it out there for discussion. What can we do?
UPDATE:
A few points:
1. No I don't have dirt on Spuriell except for some pictures of him drunk and looking stupid on his myspace page. :-)
2. This is bigger than Armando. It really isn't about him anymore. In his case, the damage is already done. He's quitting. This outing business is becoming the hip new trend in RW circles. If nothing is done, they will keep on doing it and hurting people's lives.
3. I'm honestly looking for ideas about what we should do. Please feel free to offer them.
UPDATE 2: Even after being condemned by the phony Online Integrity project, Stephen still refuses to remove the incriminating post. At this point, I think we can stop debating whether or not what Stephen did was wrong.