Enter the blogger

Sometimes it seems like everyone in the political world has a blog, but are blogs legitimate political journalism? A recent incident involving Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl makes that question more than an academic exercise.

A blog is a daily journal or diary posted on the web by some individual with something to say. Depending on the author, a blog can be rude, insulting,demeaning, and full of curse words -- exactly what you will not hear on the 6 o'clock news.

Blogs are full of personal opinion, but occasionally contain the truth. It was a blogger, after all, who first reported that former CBS anchor Dan Rather relied on forged documents when he first reported on "60 Minutes" about President Bush's conduct stateside in the National Guard during the Vietnam War. More recently, blogger John McIntyre got credit, or infamy, for reporting in his blog that the young mayor of Pittsburgh had been arrested at a Steelers game. Within hours after his posting, Ravenstahl invited members of the mainstream media to his office to give his side of the story. A blogger had forced a politician to go public, and all of a sudden it was legitimate news.

For months many in the mainstream media had heard the gist of the story involving Ravenstahl.

The rumored story was this: Luke got drunk at a Steelers tailgate party, got raucous entering the stadium, cussed out a police officer, was restrained and arrested, called Dennis Regan, a close confidante of soon-to-be-mayor Bob O'Connor, was released promptly, and all paper evidence of the altercation was destroyed.

Since last fall, television and print investigators tried to track down the story, trying to locate police officers who would verify the incident.

Twice Ravenstahl denied the gist of the allegation, first to WPXI's Rick Earle and then to KDKA's Marty Griffin, although the denials contained some wiggle room in retrospect. No matter. Without a specific accuser, no legitimate media would report the story.

Enter a blogger.

Conventional reporting ethics do not apply to the blogosphere. No need to check and double-check sources. No need to give both sides of the story.

A blogger can lie, and some do. A blogger can also report the truth even when there is no hard evidence of what's true.

A few weeks ago, McIntyre, an irreverent talk show host and standup comedian who calls Ravenstahl "Opie," reported on his blog what was percolating in many newsrooms: "It was the 2005 Halloween Monday Night Steelers Game at Heinz Field. Word on the street: Opie was rowdy. Somebody called security. A cop tried to reign Opie in. Opie got belligerent and pushed the cop. Opie allegedly begged for forgiveness once they slapped the cuffs on him."

Now a blogger saying this is not news for mainstream media, but the mayor responding to it is news. Ravenstahl admitted part and denied part of the story. He was drinking, not drunk; he blames a cop for charging into the crowd, but he admits to swearing at the officer; he was led away in handcuffs, but he denies ever calling anyone to get out of the mess.

And he says the police did not treat him differently even though he was a city council member and his father is the local magistrate for the North Side.

In my view, the media reported the mayor's side of the story fully and accurately. But later, I got one of those "shame on you" e-mails from some viewer who claimed the mainstream media had failed to do its job by not reporting the story earlier, i.e., that we were protecting Ravenstahl. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's the basic difference between a blog and the news. Without hard evidence or one of the parties talking, the media did not have a story. The bloggers did.

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