Jeremy Sear's use of a fake name is no big deal, really

Crikey blogger Jeremy Sear tacitly admits to assuming a false identity when speaking with Andrew Bolt on talk-back radio:

LOL. Apparently asking a question of a polemicist on talkback radio is "hassling" them.

Jeremy is obviously keen to divert attention away from his clandestine activities.

It just doesn't seem to have clicked with Jeremy that he is no longer "just some guy with a blog" but that he writes for a media powerhouse and can "now actually ring the subject of a piece and say 'it’s Jeremy from Crikey' and they’ll answer the phone." Or as he writes on his personal blog:

When you're a blogger, and you're criticising something a journalist has published, you don't email or call them first - partly because you don't think it really matters, but also because you've little confidence they'd reply to you if you did, so why bother? However, when you have a professional organisation to name when you contact the person - when you can say "It's Jeremy from Crikey" - then it seems that you actually have a duty to do so. Because you can.

It didn't immediately click that I suddenly had the ability to do that, and therefore should. I don't think of myself as a journalist - I'm not trained as a journalist, and this blogging thing is merely a hobby. I'm a lawyer, and a blogger, not a journo. But Crikey is a professional media organisation, and the standards required are higher.

The point has been made, and for anything in Crikey I will henceforth play the journalism game - particularly if I could arguably be seen to be drawing implications about what a journalist has done from their piece, rather than simply commenting on the opinion they've expressed. (Historically that hasn't been a problem, since previous subjects have pretty much exclusively been publishing their mere opinions.)

Still, after almost five years of amateur blogging, it's a bit of a culture shock.

Jeremy should therefore endeavour to meet the high standards he set for himself and use his real name when lodging blog comments and when phoning talkback radio. Then again, Jeremy's anonymous comments and use of false identities no doubt makes him unique amongst Australia's blogging elites. That's no badge of distinction, however.

Jeremy and his Pure Poison cohorts once lodged apparently earth shatteringly important but false charges that Tim Blair commented using a false identity. Yet when Jeremy assumes a false identity, it's no big deal. Hypocrite.

Update Jeremy has been bad-mouthing me in emails to Alene Composta:

I am very sorry to see what those utter pr*cks, Beck, Blair and Bolt, have done with their repulsive horde of monkeys. Bullies and thugs, the lot of them.

Fiancée Keri joins in:

I noticed that the usual suspects like J F Beck and Tim Blair have been attacking you (no doubt partly because you showed public support for Jeremy). I just wanted to let you know that I thought the post you wrote in response was very brave, and the only reason I'm not posting this on your blog is because I'm conscious that would make things worse.

Also, I'm fairly sure that "Spot the Dog", one of your followers, is J F Beck. I'd suggest you block him if you can. I know you can't stop him from reading, but if he knows that you're on to him, it might give him pause. I can't prove that it's him, but we're fairly sure it is.

Nice try Kerimy; I'm not Spot the Dog and never have been. Leftards are nothing if not entertaining; duplicitous yes, but oh so entertaining:

You can tell from the note that Jeremy believed in me, a faith that gave strength to my blogging and stiffened my conviction. But it didn't last. By the time he had published that Pure Poison post, this is what he was saying about my blogging. It was an "assinine gotcha".

Thus Jeremy is caught in a gotcha of his own making.

Update II Alene demands natural justice:

For 24 hours this blog was the destination for visitors following links that Jeremy Sear posted at his site. Then the trouble began, the abusive avalanche commenced, and the link was gone.

How can we stand together, Jeremy, if we are not prepared to be hanged together?

I know I said I would not blog again, but I can no longer stand by that promise. I have been betrayed by so many people. Now I demand that the guilty to explain themselves.

What say you Jeremy?