Readers from back in the fall know that I was a little (ahem) obsessed, shall we say, about the election in general and a certain governor from Alaska in particular. Like bazillions of others, I was stunned by the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate and promptly entered “Sarah Palin” into the Google search field on my screen. And one of the places I landed was a blog called Mudflats written under the pseudonym AKMuckraker. I liked it a lot, became a regular reader and told all my friends about it.
The writer was based in Alaska, and like me, was just a person, offering a perspective on things from where he/she sat (for quite awhile I had no idea of the writer’s gender), offering his/her reality. Speaking her (because it turns out it is a “her”) truth. (God, I know that sounds pretentious.)
The reason I am sharing this is because this morning I and other Mudflats readers received an e-mail from AKMuckraker with the subject line “AKMuckraker ‘outed’ by Alaskan Politician.” (I urge you to read her related blog post, “In Exposing the Identity of Mudflats, Rep. Mike Doogan Exposes Himself.“)
[Update: The site is back up is down for maintenance at the moment, but you can read about what happened, among other places, here at Washington Monthy.]
And I have to say, the timing and the subject are a little uncanny. Because it seems I may have my own miniature AKMuckraker situation going on, although not with a government official, but “officials” nonetheless. In late February I received an e-mail to my personal “in real life” e-mail address, addressing me by my real name, warning me off for the content of one of my posts. The person clearly went through some effort to ascertain my identity. More recently an e-mail was posted countywide which alluded to a blogger with possibly shady intentions. And I have an interesting new follower on Twitter.
Newbie that I am to the big picture school scene, I’m learning from others that this is standard operating procedure in some quarters–in essence, Welcome to the Club. Part of me anticipated that something like this could happen. Now that it’s happening…. Well, it’s surprising and interesting and disturbing all rolled into one.
[...] The More Child, SwitchedonMom was also attracted to AKMuckraker because of the interest in Sara Palin, and soon became a fan. Now, she’s as concerned as the [...]
[...] The More Child, SwitchedonMom was also attracted to AKMuckraker because of the interest in Sara Palin, and soon became a fan. Now, she’s as concerned as the [...]
I blog under my own name, though this happened accidentally. I was pretty clueless when I set up my blog three+ years ago. My advice to new bloggers who want to blog or Tweet anonymously is to assume they are going to be uncovered at some point.
I’m sure it’s an unfortunate surprise to be “found out,” though.