March 2007
Blogs Test Security of “Off-the-Record” Discourse
By Jay Lurie

With the advent of blogs, podcasts, and other forms of egalitarian media technologies on the Internet, comes the realization that the SAIS administration is facing in accommodating both students and guest speakers while factoring in the ease of information flow. Just as Hugo Chavez has rendered “21st Century Socialism” as the antidote for social inequality in Latin America, SAIS must tackle this new obstacle with “21st Century Supervision.”

One example of the need to reconsider the norms of what information students publish occurred last month when an expert on Iran foreign policy spoke at SAIS, sponsored by the Middle East Studies (MES) program as part of the brownbag series. As usual, all SAIS students were invited to attend, and as usual the speaker was invited to express his views “off the record.” The speaker, an Iranian-American SAIS graduate with dual-citizenship and two passports, assumed that the “off the record” condition was in place, but it was not mentioned at the inception of the event. While much of his comments were tame and non-controversial, one part was indeed slightly inflammatory – the kind of comments that he would not have wanted to be transmitted to senior officials in Iran, bearing consequences that potentially could jeopardize his right to enter the country, threaten him with arrest, and worse, endanger his life. However, it was not made clear to students in this instance that the event was to be held “off the record.”
 
Thus, shortly after the event, one of the student attendees innocently updated her personal blog, repeating some of the comments that she recorded from the speaker. The speaker quickly got wind of this and requested MES program coordinator, Megan Ring, to take it down. The situation was thus handled quietly and diplomatically, the student willingly removing the posting from her blog. As Ring acknowledges, experiences like this can deter future speakers from coming, especially in the highly-sensitive arena of Middle Eastern affairs. 
 
According to Public Affairs Director, Felisa Klubes, most events held at SAIS are “on the record.” However, certain academic programs may attract industry experts that will come to speak to students “off the record” and express their thoughts freely as an academic exercise without the baggage of the overarching message represented by their organization. Many speakers will opine more to students than they otherwise would to the general public. 
 
Whether events are designated “open to the public” or “SAIS-only” is a decision made by the event coordinator in conjunction with the speaker. From there, attribution can fall into three categories: 1) On the record – everything is quotable, 2) Not for attribution – content is quotable, but it cannot be directly attributed to the person speaking, and 3) Off the record – not for reproduction in any form. 
 
The issue arises when the privacy level of the speech is miscommunicated between the coordinator and presenter. If an event is to be “off the record,” the coordinator must announce this at the beginning of the presentation. While one can generally assume that discourse is on the record unless otherwise stated, Klubes advises students, “When in doubt, ask.” 
 
Enter SAISgeist, a pioneering student-led blog created by former editors of the SAIS Observer, Eric Jaffe, MA4 and Jon Raviv, MA4 set to launch this week. The site, which will be updated regularly by eight student writers, all second-year students from various disciplines, will be reviewed by Jaffe and Raviv, while student-writer Nikos Tsafos will serve as writer-editor. As many SAIS-ers expand into the world of online expression, SAISgeist will be a slightly different medium. While student views are not those of the university, the blog is hosted by SAIS and thus the Office of Public Affairs dictates the rules of procedure.
 
Oversight efforts are led by Klubes together with Jeff Barrus, Web and Multimedia Administrator, who designed the guidelines which, among other things, prohibit the use of offensive language, personal attacks, commercial or non-profit advertising, and ask that writers adhere to basic journalistic standards. Barrus, who worked previously at the SAIS International Reporting Project, adapted rules of good reporting to create the blog guidelines. In crafting such rules, Barrus also referred to other university-hosted blogs across the country including University of Minnesota, Western Kentucky University and North Carolina State University. While these schools are not the typical laundry list of SAIS rivals, they do in fact have well-established blogs and published policies, which were simply not available for SAIS’s rival schools.  
 
The Office of Public Affairs guidelines are not just in place for SAISgeist but for all present and future SAIS blogs, such as the upcoming blog sponsored by Robert Guttman for the SAIS Center for Politics and Foreign Relations.
 
Though Klubes recalls very few instances in her nine years at SAIS of confusion about “on the record” versus “off the record” presentations, the ease and speed of information flow is greater than it has ever been. It would be a shame if fewer experts decided to speak “off the record” at intimate student-oriented presentations due to mistrust in the flow of information. 

Jay Lurie is a 2nd year MA candidate concentrating in International Development