First let me state for the record up front, I am an “activist journalist.” Corruption, greed, dishonesty, blight, and hypocrisy are all things that I abhor. If you are a regular listener or a reader of this web column - notice I say web column and not “blog” - then you know that I have an agenda and I wear it proudly on my sleeve. However, any journalist that tells you they do not have an agenda is a liar. Even George Meyers has an agenda; he doesn’t want you to get wet unnecessarily when it rains and he wants you to bring your animals in when it threatens to freeze outside. It is the same with a dentist whose agenda is to make sure everyone has a healthy mouth. He cleans people’s teeth the best he can, but never pulls a healthy tooth just because he can.

The difference between an activist journalist and a mere activist can be summed up in the following example: if I find out Commissioner Betty Beard owns blighted property she is allowing people to live in, I have a duty to check the property records of all of her commission colleagues. If Don Grantham or Al Mason also own similar property, it is my responsibility to include that in any story about Betty Beard. Otherwise, I have really gotten close to committing libel by omission.  If I complain about Al Mason’s city gas card usage, I must tell you how much gas his colleagues used, or I am unfairly targeting Mason and telling YOU a lie of omission. Professionals in my field understand our life experience and our ideals are important in crafting an accurate and unbiased story, otherwise we would simply be robots regurgitating boring information. Yet, we also know that we can never let a good story get in the way of the facts. The agenda must never become more important than the public interest.

In an information driven society, sources of news are abundant. A somewhat recent trend is the blogger, and they have their place in the realm of information dissemination and discussion. However, it becomes dangerous when the blogger begins to enter the mainstream media disguised as a journalist. We have had that occur in Augusta. A woman by the name of Jill Peterson, who blogs under the name the Augusta Citizen Investigator, suddenly showed up a few months ago writing in the local press. The problem is that she brought her blog experience to news writing and no one printing her work made sure the public was informed of such. In the process, Ms. Peterson broke with many ethical standards and left behind a trail of misinformation that ultimately - I believe - causes harm to everyone who presents news in the media and the public as well.

One Peterson piece on the economy drew the wrath of the Cree-Walker Chair of Business Administration at Augusta State University, Mark Thompson. A well-respected expert on the Augusta metro economy, Thompson took Peterson to task for literally every economic assertion she made. “Journalists” like Peterson love to dazzle readers with statistics and numbers; however, from reading Thompson’s rebuttal it seems he was impressed with the statistics, only baffled by the wanna-be reporter’s “b.s.”  Peterson was attempting to sell data as empirical when it was clear to Thompson she didn’t fully understand the numbers or what they meant. Thomson also took Peterson to task for her written treatment of Mayor Deke Copenhaver and his comments about the economy. Indeed, Thompson took the unusual step, for a mild mannered business professor, of insinuating Peterson either misquoted the Mayor or simply made words up for him and placed them in quotes. Such an accusation would be the kiss of death for any credible journalist, but not Peterson. Her disdain for the Mayor went so deep that she may have created a whole new genre of creative writing: blogastalkarazojournalism.

A recent Peterson piece titled “Face Book Mayor” sent shock waves throughout the local world of newsgathering. Yes, we were all shocked, but not in a good way. What was paraded as investigative journalism better enlightened the reporter’s objectivity rather than the object of the story. Rule number one in journalism is that you do not employ an attack strategy with an interview subject unless you are convinced through documented evidence that the person has committed a crime. Rule number two is that you never cloak your identity unless rule number one’s exception is employed. Rule number three is you do not stalk an interview subject unless rule number one’s exception is employed. Peterson broke all of those rules and then made up some new ones.

Peterson became angry after her repeated posts and “kissing up” (her words) led to Copenhaver removing her from his Facebook friends list. She then created an alias and went right back at it, and that was just the beginning. After filing a patently silly Freedom of Information Act request, we learn the mayor’s appointment calendar did not feature dates to discuss issues important to Peterson, “I looked for these terms in his 2008 schedule: poverty — 0, hunger — 0, charity — 0, nonprofit — 0, unemployment — 0, employment — 0, food stamps — 0, public housing — 0, shelter — 0, nutrition — 0, transportation — 0, department of labor — 0.”  Here we go with the statistics again; after finding out the Mayor spoke with Superintendent Dana Bedden 0 times about truancy, we learn he did have lunch officially 61 times throughout the year according to the calendar. Peterson’s piece de resistance was that Copenhaver’s calendar showed he spoke with Cal Ripkin 29 times in one year. Stop the presses! The reality is that you cannot determine how a public figure feels about an issue or what steps that person has taken to address an issue by what is scrawled in an appointment book. Our budding investigative reporter then followed the Mayor and Commissioners to their annual retreat in Athens. The meeting had a quorum of elected officials, so there was nothing inappropriate with her being there, except Peterson was not there to cover the event and did not seem to be interested in what the officials were discussing there. Rather, she wanted the Mayor to sit down with her and discuss the shooting of Justin Elmore at Cherry Tree Crossing and why he was not present at the mans funeral.

Am I being a little hard on Jill Peterson? No, I do not believe I am. The role of a journalist is the only private sector job mentioned in the United States Constitution. Having access to thousands of listeners and readers gives the journalist an enormous amount of power. With that power comes equal - if not paramount - responsibility. People who are in charge of media organizations also have a responsibility to the public to make sure their writers are professional and conduct themselves according to the highest of standards.

There used to be a day when a college-educated reporter found themselves writing obituaries first, then tiny feature stories, and then working the crime beat, which consists basically of rifling through the previous days police reports. It used to take years, sometimes, for a reporter to be given a real byline. Trust me, Mary Liz Nolan did not sail out of high school into a news directorship and that is why WGAC’s wall is filled with awards with her name on them. I am not suggesting being a member of the media puts us in some special elite club that frowns on outsiders. What I am saying is that you do not want me operating on your body, because I am not trained to do so. Like anything that is to be done well, it should be left to the professionals.