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The latest illustration of this disconnect comes in the form of an email exchange between Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Ryan Mac, a BuzzFeed journalist. At the beginning of summer, BuzzFeed, along with many other media organizations, covered a show that involved Musk, a British diver, and a team of young footballers trapped in a cave in Thailand. The diver, Vern Unsworth, made fun of Musk's attempts to help the football team, via a small submarine that his engineers had built and stole from the site. Musk responded by calling Unsworth a "pedo guy" on Twitter, but apologized shortly thereafter.
Last week, Musk seemed to go back on his remorse, suggesting it was "strange" that Unsworth has not yet sued him. But Unsworth's lawyer reportedly warned Musk that a defamation suit was imminent, so Mac sent Musk an email for comment. "Off the record," wrote Musk in an email. "I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what is really going on and stop defending child rapists."
BuzzFeed ready to publish the entire message. When Musk realized that it would happen, he sent to Mac:
Out of the folder
We did not have any conversation at all. I sent you an unofficial email, which says very clearly and unambiguously "out of the file". If you want to post comments off the record and destroy your journalistic credibility, it's up to you.
To answer more questions, I would be happy to do so, but not with someone who just told me that he will not abide by the accepted rules of journalism.
I can see how, at first glance and if the reader does not know the minutiae of journalistic ethics – guidelines that journalists themselves often revisit to better perform their job – this exchange resembles a journalist who deliberately violates journalism. When sources tell reporters that they want something unusual, the statement is ambiguous. Do not print this.
But the way Musk uses it here, as do many people who communicate with reporters, particularly in politics, suggests that he thinks that "out of the file" looks like a talisman protective. protects the source.
And that's not how it works.
"Every discussion with a journalist is sort of a pre-arranged agreement, whether it's on the record, in the background, or off-line," says Adam L. Penenberg, a professor in the journalism program at New York University. "On the record" means all that the source says it can be published; "In the background" means that the information can be published without giving the name of the source; and "off the record" means that the reporter can not print what the source told him (however, he may try to verify or corroborate this information with a different source).
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