If they’re predictable situations then give me four or five that you think absolutely will happen, even though we do not know the particulars. That will make it easier to think about, and I might well have ideas that pertain, or need to get some, soon. You must have some: what should we be prepared for?

Maybe one reason I hesitate is my guess. My guess is these situations are not really about blogging, new media, journalism, or reporting at all, but the all-important line between public (square) and private (life), a subject I have strong feelings–and many thoughts–about!

In my own blogging, I observe a strict separation. I’m almost Calvinist about it. I don’t bring the private into the public. I use Facebook not to keep my friends up on what I’m doing, but to keep friends of my ideas up on what I am thinking and saying IN PUBLIC… and in my work. (The very last thing I would update you on at my blog is my mood.)

The overheard private statement isn’t a public utterance. That’s why you shouldn’t blog about it. But these are rules of decency, not blogging. You see what I mean?

Notions like “character” are inherently subject to abuse–and the character issue is often abused in politics and journalism–as they argue for the public significance of what are essentially private actions. I think we should very wary of those who make claims like that, and we should insist on the greater significance of public actions.

On the other hand, when everything a public official says is a lie, a misdirection, a charade, we’re permitted to mistrust appearances. But the crucial question is: when you dig behind the facade, are you digging into the official’s (hidden) public record or his private business, which is hidden because it’s private?

These are things I would tell bloggers. One more: I think we should strive to keep your channel clear for stuff that has public import.

I understand that most of what you are doing right now is convincing old media nostalgists that there a lot of good stuff happening, but that shouldn’t preclude us discussing the downside.

Are there lots of situations where public officials are getting unfairly hosed in blogs for something they said in line at the grocery store? If there were, I might write about those situations, and try to see in them where wisdom lies.

True, it could happen today in a way that was not there before blogging and the personalizing of media. In my experience you’re better off puzzling over what does happen, now that we have the Net, than you are worrying about what could happen because we have the Net. That’s why I like Clay Shirky so much.

Often in journalism one appearance of something is a story, two is a trend and three is a new law of human nature. I do try to avoid that, as well.

I’m not saying you and Jarvis should sit down and make a list of rules for new media and hand them down from on high.

But why not start the conversation? Why not try to affect the development of those rules by applying your expertise to highlighting the negative.

Rules don’t appear organically out of no where. Folks debate them and try to design them to minimize the bad and promote the good. Why not express your opinions on the bad and the good to help mold that?

Maybe what you mean is “a sense of restraint.” Like when we ask, “why did he do that?” and someone answers, “because he can.” The opposite of that attitude is restraint. You can but you don’t. This is the opposite of rules.

Public figures who are speaking to supporters and within the bounds of an intimate community, who find their words recorded, ripped from context, and introduced into the larger public square, where they take on a completely different meaning…. yes, this is a problem. The only solution I see is for public figures to adjust their internal meters, their language.

But I think your “people will know it when they see it, we don’t need rules” is extremely optimistic about human nature in a way I have a hard time with.

And again, let’s not talk about random people doing non-political things or major politicians talking about politics. Let’s deal with the complicated situations where you have public figures who are much closer to the ground, living in a community that is held together with a certain level of unspoken trust. How do we negotiate their circumstances?

But, yes, the notion that your conversation in the laundromat could wind up in a blog is scary and extreme; and we really cannot reckon with it using the same terms we use to discuss Obama, Kristol, Tomasky and Arianna.

But I don’t think Tomasky was on the right track with “rules.” If I had replied (Jeff did it, so there was no need) I would have said that in a situation where there are no publicly-known and established rules, in uncharted territory, you need people with an inner sense of direction, of right and wrong. That’s what saves you from an “anything goes” mentality, not “let’s have some rules.” The person who would secretly record you in the laundromat and post your conversation on his blog with secretly snapped pictures of you in your sweatpants… lacks decency not rules.

Journalists tend to believe that their behavior is more rule-governed than it is. Ask someone in pro journalism to explain the rules for “off the record” sometime, or, if you really want to have fun, the rules for whether something is news. After a few minutes they usually give up, falling back on something like: “you know it when you see it.” Or: “takes experience to know.”

I don’t think Tomasky meant: “let’s have some rules.” He meant, “let’s have some ropes” and keep the Mayhill Fowlers behind them.

But doesn’t that say to you that, as I argue, we do have to figure out how to flesh out some rules?

My primary concern is not with national figures like Kristol or Obama. Too much of this conversation, in my opinion, focuses on people who are the most public, allowing for us to not deal with the more difficult and complicated situations.

The public and the private, as I argue above, are not so easily distinguished in most local communities. And the tools that made Obama vulnerable make us all vulnerable, they don’t stop working when the person being discussed is in a more ambiguous situation.