At 10:03 AM 10/13/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote:
When Sheila told you Martin did not wish to see you, that should have been the end of the story. You should have handed over the flowers with your best wishes, gone home, said nothing and done nothing. This is the family's business only. You should not discuss it in public or offer any opinion. Sickness and old age are bad enough! Sheila has quite enough problems without you jokers adding to her burden.
Krivit misbehaved in England, and should apologize to the family. His frustration was understandable, but what do we think about a reporter who takes his own frustration out on a subject who refuses an interview -- or, with the permission of the family, blocks one? "Unprofessional" is the word that comes to mind. We all make mistakes; and Steve made several here, and the sooner he realizes his mistakes and acknowledges them as such, the sooner he, New Energy Times, the Fleischmann family, and the rest of us can recover from it. I'm hoping that Steve does the right thing, it's pretty simple, and if he does, it's over. If not, this will stand as a stain on his record, a very public record that will endure.
It is not the job of a reporter to disgorge every experience of the reporter; rather, discretion is required. No facts were uncovered or reported by Krivit that would make the sequence of events sufficiently notable to report to the public. Krivit is free, as an individual, to blog about his speculations and concerns, but there is a problem when a serious reporter, as Krivit attempts to be, mixes his roles. We may be free to blog, but all of our work may then be judged by what we say.
"Reporter Steve Krivit of New Energy Times attempted to meet with Dr. Martin Fleischmann at his home in England on ...., as had been previously arranged, but was turned away, being told that Fleischmann wasn't well enough to meet. Several days later, Krivit interviewed Fleischmann in Rome, and he was apparently in good condition. The interview follows ...."
That's about it. It's possible that Dr. Fleischmann's treatment with LifeWave is reportable, but such matters should be carefully balanced with privacy issues, and I'm not convinced that sufficient detail is available to make for a story; extrapolation from a patient's condition on one day, with no details, is utterly inappropriate. Nobody ever said that the job of a journalist is easy.
