"A former Microsoft executive who ended up jobless, broke, and separated from his wife after being identified by name and quoted in a BusinessWeek story about dysfunctional workplaces has lost a lawsuit he filed against the magazine and the reporter who wrote the story..
The jury rejected a claim by former Microsoft director of IT audits Peter Tilton that BusinessWeek reporter Michelle Conlin had promised him anonymity in exchange for an interview on the work environment at the software maker."
The story resonated for me on a couple of different levels. Normally, I don't have any trouble finding sources to spout off on whatever topic happens to be on IndustryWeek's monthly editorial schedule. On the contrary, they usually flood my inbox, and it's usually more a question of picking the right voice out of the crowd.
However, I recently wrote a piece on IT outsourcing, and judging from the number of people who didn't want to talk at all, much less on the record (as well as some of the angry posts I've received on the subject at our Reader TalkBack forum) this is an extremely touchy subject. I had to be very specific in my assurances to one source in particular that I wouldn't specify even the industry of his/her company for fear of the knowledge being traced back to him/her (see, I'm still doing it!).
On one hand, any journalist knows that when there's that much paranoia and controversy, it's a topic worth pursuing. However, I'm definitely proceeding with caution, because as much as I enjoy writing about controversial topics, the last thing I want anyone to do is lose their job over a story of mine (much less get sued by the source based on a "he said/she said" oral agreement!)
As if that wasn't enough reason for me to tread extra-carefully with my contacts, I recently experienced the dark side of the coin myself when I served as a source for a Folio: article -- an article I originally thought was about the "digital journalist's toolbox" but ended up being titled "Job Hunting In '08" (and featuring, quite prominently, my LinkedIn profile page as the article artwork!) I don't mean to say that I was misled in the slightest -- in fact, author Matt Kinsman and I had a very interesting and wide-ranging conversation that covered both these topics and quite a few besides -- but I have to say that I was more than a little floored when my group publisher (read: my boss's boss's boss) inquired how my job search was going...!
2 comments:
Most likely Brad's group publisher is on LinkedIn too. Over the past few months, I've noticed that all of the top brass at my company are in LinkedIn. Some of my younger colleagues are in FaceBook.
The bottom line seems to be that social networking is starting to cut both ways. It's good to be in game. I've actually gotten to know co-workers better through FB and have made other worthwhile contacts with others in the b2b press. But be careful because chances are your boss is looking at your LinkedIn or FB profile too.
Shoot -- most likely my group publisher is reading this blog right now...!
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