Kansas City Star guest editorialist Danedri Herbert became the focus of attention in the Kansas City Media market, not because of her firebrand conservatism, but because Tyler Longpine, an individual active in past Democratic campaigns in Kansas, noticed something pretty fishy.
While Herbert was writing guest editorials for the KC Star, she was also running a parallel, anonymous blog known as “Kansas GOP Insider”, which railed against moderate Republicans, promoted her friends and allies, and bashed policy proposals. It was a swing for the fences, tongue in cheek guide to Kansas GOP politics… and, running that site as “Gidget”, with the twitter handle @gidgetisit, she was able to take positions that seemed strangely familiar.
In Longpine’s article, he correctly summed up the problem: is it, or isn’t it, plagiarism?
That’s when I took a long trip down the rabbit hole. I discovered those similarities are only the tip of the iceberg and found some pretty clear instances of plagiarism.
Danedri took the mask down today, and responded that due to “internet trolls” she was forced to admit that, yes, in fact, she was running Gidget as a sock puppet. Rather than take responsibility for problem, though, she referred to this unmasking as simply “feeding the trolls”
www.kansascity.com/…
With this column, I’m about to dole out a few morsels and feed the internet trolls, something I try hard not to do. For that, I apologize.
I have a not-so-anonymous blog on the interwebs. It’s languished in the virtual world for more than four years at www.insideksgop.com, where I’ve slowly built a pretty decent readership. Mostly, I write about Kansas politics. I write unabashedly from a Christian, center-right perspective.
Because liberal activists are accusing me of professional misconduct, and because Kansas City Star editors prefer their writers be on-the-record all of the time, I am coming out of the closet.
what Danedri fails to acknowledge, at any point in her response is whether or not there was actual professional misconduct. In the age of the internet, many forums — like Daily Kos — understand that one of the big journalistic sins is using sock puppets for reinforcement. By creating multiple accounts that say nearly the same thing, it provides an author the ability to seem “bigger” than they are, and create the perception of a wide spread viewpoint when there may not be one.
Danedri, though the use of Gidgetisit, managed to create this narrative in the open, and the is it or isn’t it game of credit applied to the GOP Insider’s blog reinforces viewpoints, even when only one viewpoint is actually being given time.
Danedri, rather than admit to any lack of ethics or self-plagiarism, instead goes on the attack.
Because I’ve been outed, however, I’ll refocus my attention. In the next week or so, I was planning to write about the skeleton that was recently stuffed back into one Kansas congressman’s closet. I intended to update information about the investigation into the former Johnson County election commissioner. Instead, I think I’ll redirect my attention to some of the shadow groups, like Kansas Values Institute and others who will be active in elections this fall. It’s time they came out from the shadows into the sunshine.
Noting that, as a result of being outed she will stop working on stories of public interest, teasing her knowledge of skeletons in a congressman’s closet or an election investigation, instead, she intends to focus her efforts now on a vendetta against those who outed her, calling this an attack on her income and herself as a person.
Instead, Danedri celebrates her attempt to hide who she was through deception while calling out others:
www.insideksgop.com/...
The secret of who I am IRL is out, thanks to internet trolls on Twitter. They put two and two together, specifically, one Tyler Longpine, who has his own history of anonymous internet experience, and who accused me of professional misconduct.
It wasn't really much of a secret to those who know me personally. To those I may not have been as forthcoming with, you should know that at one point, I had a friend from across the state line uploading my posts. So the question, "Are you Gidget?" could honestly be answered with, "I'm not posting that stuff."
What Gidget, or Danedri, doesn’t seem to grasp is that she is being paid for editorial content, distributed by a major paper in the state for her political commentary. There are certain expectations here, and basic guidelines that are expected. Readers judge what you write based on past work, and until confirmed, this looked like a lot of plagiarism. That is fair game to be discussed, by anyone.
The Kansas City Star seems prepared to stand behind their featured columnist, and that is, of course, their right as a business.
For those of us who are concerned about sock puppets, creating your own chorus, and being paid for your work product, it is certainly an interesting new way to look at modern day paid journalistic practices.
For the record of those at the Star who may read this: I do not blog under any other identity, I am not paid for what I write on Daily Kos, and I have no plans to create fake identities to cheer on my content. For the record.
