{"id":185,"date":"2006-04-21T11:10:53","date_gmt":"2006-04-21T16:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2006\/04\/21\/worship-at-the-alter-ego\/"},"modified":"2009-07-07T21:58:33","modified_gmt":"2009-07-08T02:58:33","slug":"worship-at-the-alter-ego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/04\/worship-at-the-alter-ego\/","title":{"rendered":"Worship at the alter ego"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new ethical quandary in the news media<\/a>. Los Angeles Times<\/em> columnist Michael Hiltzik used fake names to publish comments on his blog and on those of others. Some of his creations conversed with one another. The LAT blog was suspended; the dude apparently still has his print outlet.<\/p>\n

Mea culpa. When Brick<\/strong> got its WordPress sophistication, I made a comment or two under a pen name to test the system: How fast does feedback work, and how do the options in the moderation process function.<\/p>\n

Also, my alter ego has been egging me on<\/a> in published works since junior high school, more than three decades ago. It’d hurt his feelings to drop him now; Noah Vale has no other livelihood. He’s more than a pretend-friend; he has a fictive legacy starting approximately with Benjamin Franklin’s Silence Dogood and continuing with Mike Royko’s Slats Grobnik<\/a> and all of Art Buchwald<\/a>‘s Washington insiders.<\/p>\n

I’m not killing my buddy, even if it costs me an arbitrary stamp of ethical approval. Call it: A writerly Turnip<\/a> (see barely related Joe Klein book<\/a>). -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new ethical quandary in the news media. Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik used fake names to publish comments on his blog and on those of others. Some of his creations conversed with one another. The LAT blog was suspended; the dude apparently still has his print outlet. Mea culpa. When Brick got its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technical-difficulties","tag-columnist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4901,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2014\/07\/columnists-in-capital\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":0},"title":"#nsnc14dc: Columnists in the Capital & Beyond","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Speakers at the 38th annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists could be separated into two general topics, with overlap: Some focused on Washington and capital news, and others on developing of crafting and marketing columns. Hence, two stories. I took a lot of notes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Brick Bats Reportage"","block_context":{"text":"Brick Bats Reportage","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/brick-bats-reportage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"I can explain. Being immediate past president, I was welcomed to the opening June 26, 2014, of the NSNC hospitality suite by Marcia Tammeus, Annie Barr and Michelle Freed.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Hosp-Suite-Opening-062614-nsnc14dc-300x168.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1794,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/02\/columnist-sympathizer\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":1},"title":"Columnist Sympathizer","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A nice thing just happened. On Jan. 31, I was elected vice president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. I've been a card-carrying columnist since 1991, joining during the run of my column Mirthology, in the old Arkansas Democrat. The post is interim, to cover after a resignation, until\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Card-Carrying Columnist Card","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/NSNC_card-300x180.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4908,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2014\/07\/crafting-columns\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":2},"title":"#nsnc14dc: Crafting Columns, Getting Them Known","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Why were we here, besides for our writer friends and some sightseeing? To get better. Speakers at the 2014 conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists discussed politics, government and history, but the focus was on development of our skills. Hence, two wrap-up pieces. I tried\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Brick Bats Reportage"","block_context":{"text":"Brick Bats Reportage","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/brick-bats-reportage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"John Avlon, Eric Heyl, Alexandra Petri and Ben Pollock after the morning session of the NSNC conference Saturday, June 28, 2014. ","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Four-by-SMS-062814-240x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":150,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/05\/voices-gone-wild\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":3},"title":"Voices gone wild","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, May 3, 2005. It is far too easy for executives of media to pigeonhole columns into commentary. Or analysis. It then needs to be consistent, which is why humor and certain other person viewpoint columns are out these days. You can't have your toothpaste\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":203,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/07\/norma-desmond-heart-hildy-johnson\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":4},"title":"Norma Desmond (heart) Hildy Johnson","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock Consider the classic movies Sunset Boulevard (1950) and His Girl Friday (1940) (the latter the second of three film adaptations of The Front Page, the first out in 1931 then the 1974). If Norma worked for Cary Grant, instead of proclaiming to William Holden's character,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2547,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2011\/01\/resolutions-for-the-columnist\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":5},"title":"Resolutions for the Columnist","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The following is my president's column for the January 2011 edition of monthly newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. 1. Quit grasping onto obvious topics like \"Columnist Lists New Year's Resolutions.\" 2. When writing, quit the posed, \"I don't know about you, but as for me ...\" or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1504,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}