On "St. Barry," "Rocket Bill," "ZuckerWright," "Teh Todd"

I can't imagine anyone really caring out this but, since an unscrupulous jerk happened to bring it up, I'll bring it up too.

For about a year, it has been my practice (my policy, actually) to reference reporting organizations rather than reporters in my blog posts. In about 99.44% of those posts, I've kept to this practice; in almost all the instances that I haven't, I've named the reporters' names to hand out banal yet true credit, like "they all do a really good job."

It wasn't always this way. In the past---and especially at this blog's first incarnation, Nationals Inquirer---I not only referred to the reporters but also commonly used the nicknames in the title of this diary. (Well, all except for that of Todd Jacobson; I'm not even sure I was aware of his reporting for the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star a year ago.) I'm not sure if "ZuckerWright" ever caught on (okay, it didn't), but "St. Barry" and "Rocket Bill" were pretty regular sightings over in these parts.

I recall first thinking of my current policy and immediately acknowledging it made a good bit of sense. As I see it, a reporter is hired by a news organization to report on behalf of the organization. His or her reporting is the organization's work product. In this sense, it is entirely accurate to say "Barry Svrluga reports" and "the Washington Post reports" synonymously.

A columnist, on the other hand, I view differently. Tom Boswell and Thom Loverro, to name just two, are paid by their respective organizations to inject opinion---hopefully (though not always) informed, cogent, and logical opinion, but it's all opinion nonetheless. It is not accurate to say "Tom Boswell opines" is the same thing as "the Post opines." (Many do, but they're plain wrong.) Boswell and Loverro, for constructive purposes, are Op-Ed writers whose opinions happen to placed in sections proper for the purpose of reaching a targeted audience.

Well, that's the way I see it. Columnists are fair (individual) game, and I think that just as much now as when I pointed out Boz didn't even know who was (and wasn't) on the Nats' roster and Loverro somehow thinks people old enough to be congressmen, senators, and President aren't "old enough" to run freakin' baseball teams. On the other hand, noting so-and-so reports for the Somethin'-Somethin' is just superfluous. And it makes the reporters the story, so to speak, when reporters are not supposed to insinuate themselves in the news. Seeing as some reporters are good enough at that already, the profession itself probably doesn't need much help in that regard.

Well, this inscrupulous jerk happens to point out that the reporters are now bloggers too, and I used the reporters' names the other night in that regard. I admit this does create a dilemma. Do I:

* not mention the blogs;
* scrap the policy;
* set up some distinguishing feature between the blogging and the reporting?

You know the answer already, don't you? I'm a lawyer, and we're really good at creating distinctions---sometimes out of whole cloth, sometimes with foundation; sometimes reasonably, sometimes unreasonably.

Here's the policy with respect to the blogger-reporters, in case you somehow care: When they blog, I use their names. (This will extend to Bill Ladson's mailbags.) When they report (in their traditional capacity), I use the publication's name.

It's simple, really. And don't you point out blogging that turns into reporting, you unscrupulous jerk.