IMO it’s good but not sufficient, since to listen to it requires that your reader invest a fair amt of time – I think you should also print, at end of the piece, a URL(not just website, a permalink) belonging to the source, where they can provide feedback and their own take on the interview.

This way readers of your piece can _quickly_ find out if the source believes he’s been misrepresented, and then – if they want – can listen to your podcast and make up their own minds.

But here’s the question: when to post the interview? If I’m writing a story, I don’t want some other publication moving faster on it and making mine redundant. So if one could post the podcast concurrent with the interview, that would make the most sense.

But yeah, I don’t know how many of my clients would dig on that.

As you can see from Dave Winer’s interactions, he’s best served by writing his own thoughts down. Any interpretation of his words seems to be a problem, so, it’s best to avoid asking him for an opinion except on his terms.

Most reporters will pass. That’s OK because he’ll weigh in on his blog anyway. He critiques media work all the time.

But as a reader of reporting I do want reporters to be able to investigate and have an open conversation with the source and interpret the information as they see it. That’s why I follow a Bill Moyers or Bob Woodward… they dig for levels of access and truth that cannot be obtained without a “no rules” dialogue with sources… and if rules are required they negotiate aggressively for control of their work.

Journalism is an art, a science and a passion. Good blogging can be too. An astute reader can detect the effort… mostly by repeated exposures to the writer.

For example, where did the “if he wants to” bit come from? Certainly not from me. I would have bent over backwards to answer his question, of course it would only be “If I want to” — but that’s the same rule that would apply if he asked me a question on the phone, I would only answer “If I want to.” That’s sloppy.

The second mistake you make is much more serious: “The problem, of course, for folks like Dave and Jason, is that they’ve done enough print interviews to get frustrated at the fact that not everything they say, not every bit of context, not every piece of backstory makes it into the final published piece.”

That doesn’t even come close to reflecting what I said or what I believe. I’ll leave it to your readers to click on the links and compare the way you’ve expressed my opinion and the way I express it.

My belief: You need the discipline of having your sources fully on the record so that you’re more careful about representing what they said. In this case, where the reader can fact-check you, you’ve utterly failed in your responsibility to tell the true story. And this is an insignificant meta-story, and not very complex, and right in your area of expertise. I don’t have much confidence that you’d be straight with me or your readers if the story you were covering was more subtle, or complex.