Right Wing News on Friday dissected this column by Kathleen Parker. In her column, Parker seems to mourn the death of off the comment records, saying that bloggers not respecting off the record comments is a blow to free speech. Right Wing News is of the opinion that off the record comments have been nearly dead for a while now, and that the increased scrutiny of the blogosphere is actually growing the amount of free speech. Frankly, I think they both miss the mark.
Off the record comments are about self interest, not freedom of speech. To drag free speech into the debate over off the record comments is to cave to cliche. The reason a reporter will grant a source an off the record venue is so they have a starting point to a story they otherwise may not have gotten. You protect your initial source, and do your research based off of that starting point. A reporter may also offer someone off the record conversations in order to built trust and rapport with a source that would be useful down the road. The reason off the record comments are seemingly dying is because everyone wants to break a story, because that's how you get noticed. There is a certain impatience with confirming a story through other sources. There are also individuals who mistakenly think that if they say "this is off the record" that the request will be automatically granted. That's all fine and good, but there are enterprising individuals out there that will still honor off the record comments. They'll build trust with people, and eventually they'll start getting the stories that no one else does because they've earned the trust of well connected people.
Off the record isn't dead, folks. It's not even on life support. And it certainly is not impacting free speech noticeably one way or another.
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