Ups and downs of a digital-age campaign

EARLY ON, I had a feeling the 2008 election was going to be different. As we prepared for the launch of Mitt Romney's national campaign, we looked to clean up his biographical entry on Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia edited by its users. Notoriously unreliable, it would serve as the first source of information for people curious about the then-unknown governor from Massachusetts.

A prankster beat us there: Romney's entry falsely claimed he spoke fluent Swahili and several different Bantu dialects. Despite our efforts to correct the record, over the course of the campaign more than one supporter would marvel to me about Romney's felicity with African languages.

There's something to be said for the old media filter. Despite its shortcomings, I kind of miss it.

In one positive sense, the still-evolving digital age means citizens with video cameras can have more impact than seasoned political reporters. The press corps may not have thought John McCain singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" was news at first, but they reconsidered when the Drudge Report linked to the video. Early GOP front-runner George Allen's "macaca" moment not only strangled his infant candidacy for president, but it torpedoed his 2006 reelection to the US Senate.

The lesson for us media handlers: Beware the innocuous-looking person with the YouTube account silently taping everything. He could destroy your day. Far less threatening was the reporter who abided by the conventional rules of journalism and knew the meaning of "off the record."

Yes, the Internet kept the mainstream media honest, and it opened new doors for candidates. Networking with tens of thousands of friends on MySpace and Facebook, it became easier to recruit volunteers. To raise money, there was no longer a need to rent a room and invite wealthy donors to munch on food and sip cocktails. Instead, donations came pouring in through the Web in response to an e-mail. In February 2007, Romney forever changed the traditional fund-raiser when he raised $6.5 million in a single day by gathering supporters at the convention center in South Boston and giving them laptops and phones.

But the Internet also allowed dirty politics to go viral. In 2004, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth paid millions of dollars for ads suggesting John Kerry's military service was dishonorable. In 2008, not a penny was spent to spread the false claim that Barack Obama was a Muslim. It received so much attention that an election-eve poll in Texas showed that nearly one-quarter of voters there believed it. Thanks to the irresponsible reporting of the left-wing site Daily Kos, another myth had it that Sarah Palin was not the mother of her infant son, Trig, and that the child actually belonged to her eldest daughter, Bristol.

Here in Massachusetts, a fringe group e-mailed conservatives around the country the absurd claim that it was Romney, not the Supreme Judicial Court, who legalized gay marriage. During the primary, I lost count of how many times Romney was asked about a feared North American union of Mexico, Canada, and the United States - a conspiracy spread by right-wing bloggers who believed all three countries would be linked by a single government, a common currency, and a 10-lane superhighway.

Where are the online gatekeepers? Gatekeeping is the most important function for the offline media. Editors decide which stories get published. They make sure rumors aren't printed. Sensitive information is double- and sometimes triple-sourced. Gatekeeping serves an important purpose in establishing the ethics of journalism. Sadly, it doesn't exist on the Web.

What can be done? Citizen-journalists and bloggers need to provide links to websites that contain factual data backing up their assertions. These connections add credibility. And while Internet libel suits can be difficult to win, they should be pursued more often.

Moreover, it would help if TV and newspapers resisted the temptation to get edgier in their own reporting. If you can't be "first" with the rumors, be first with the most comprehensive and factual account. In the current Wild West state of political reporting, you will be rewarded with loyal readership in search of honest and objective coverage.

Eric Fehrnstrom was senior communications adviser for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.