Or the closest thing to it. It seems that blogger Catherine Seipp has gotten into a blogospheric tussle with New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston. Apparently Johnston chided Seipp for revealing on her blog and in a National Review Online article that a Times reporter (not Johnston) had contacted her regarding an article on pundit payola. Seipp revealed to the reporter, and later to her readers, that she had been offered $1,000 once to write an opinion piece taking a certain side of an issue.

Johnston objected to Seipp revealing that the Times reporter had approached her because that act potentially tipped of Times competitors to a story they were working on, and the increased time pressure that goes along with a competitive story might cause the reporter to cut corners in order to get the story first.

Now, having described the issue, I'm going to come down on Seipp's side this time.  Journalists can't expect people they talk to to keep their mouths shut until a story is published -- not even other journalists. (PR hacks are the exception to this rule -- especially if they want reporters later on down the line to write little feature stories about something or the other that they're promoting.)

I've worked in competitive media environments, and I've worked at newspapers where you were the only gig in town. I've had to deal with these issues, and Johnston appears to have spent too much time in the rarified New York air to be realistic on this issue. This is the 21st Century, and as much as too many journalists hate it, we're not the only gig in town anymore.

Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.

Don't whine.