Burdick contends that he did fully ID himself and that he was writing for this site. Newport does not recall that. So we have a case of he said/he said here. And I’m confident that both Daves are fully confident in their respective recollections. So we’re at an impasse on resolving what was said.

What I think we have here is an unfortunate miscommunication. And miscommunications can happen on the hearing end as well as on the speaking end.

I think the lesson of this particular miscommunication is that, since this community journalism project is rather different from a mainstream news organization, it’s especially important when we interview people or otherwise to engage with the community to emphasize that publishing is a big part of the public conversation we’re generating here. It’s obviously easy for people to misunderstand that. All part of staying afloat in today’s shifting media landscape.

That said, I’d like to defend the ethics and professionalism of Dave Burdick here. He is an experienced journalist (who used to work with the Daily Camera in Boulder) and currently is at the Columbia Univ. graduate school of journalism. While we don’t require that people have professional journalism experience to participate in this project, Burdick’s experience is definitely a bonus. I might expect a novice to neglect to ID this project fully and appropriately to a source, but I’m skeptical that Burdick would make such an error.

Of course, I wasn’t on the call, and accidents do happen. Either way, as uncomfortable as this exchange has been, it’s been a useful teachable moment in this project.

- Amy Gahran

As one of the editors of the Boulder Carbon Tax tracker, I’ve contacted our contributor Dave Burdick about your comment above and will be contacting you separately later today so I can learn more details about this unfortunate miscommunication, in order to prevent similar problems in the future. But I do understand your annoyance, and I apologize for anything on our end that contributed to this miscommunication.

One of the challenges of running a community journalism project is that since we are not a traditional news organization, people often don’t understand immediately the role that we are playing — and sometimes we don’t always convey that well ourselves. That’s an unavoidable risk of exploring new territory in the media landscape.

I’m hoping you might be willing to help us figure out how to communicate more effectively with sources and community members about what we’re doing — that our project does involve publishing as well as public conversation.

I look forward to further discussion with you,

- Amy Gahran

While I stand by the spirit and intent of my comments to you above, in the future you might consider the courtesy of informing people that a conversation with you is on the record and intended for publication. This courtesy is the mark of a professional. You failed to mention your intent to transcribe and print the conversation we briefly had by phone that was presented as a casual discussion. Had you told me your intent, you would have gotten the same comments from me perhaps without the slightly indelicate hyperbole. However, in the future, you will not get your calls returned as I, like most people, don’t appreciate misrepresentation of intent.

An unfettered exchange of perspectives on climate issues is a good idea and I support and appreciate you seeking to engage the community on this important topic. But unprofessional conduct serves no ones interest.

Dave Newport

Thank you,
Carbonfund.org