Fadi Nahas: to blog or not to blog

So I posted this a week or more ago. Yesterday, Fadi Nahas called me from Turkey. He of course was displeased with the post and asked me questions regarding the rules and ethics of what I blog. He did not raise legal questions and he made me feel guilty. I started thinking about what I should or should not post: regarding items from people that I know or do not know. I believe that this is the second item of this kind and the first time I also received a complaint from the targeted individual. I told both of them that I would post whatever response they may have. But Fadi Nahas disputed facts in the post and I was convinced that I wronged him. So I will no more post information or allegation from people about other people who have no political positions or public posts. Of course, I will post about Arab rulers or princes or militia leaders, etc. But when it comes to private individuals even if they are known business people or others, I should be more restrained especially--as Fadi pointed out to me--that people may have agendas or personal interests or whatever, although it is not the case in this particular item. This is not a newspaper so the rules are not the same, and I tell people that a blog has to develop its own rules. And this case allowed me to reflect and to develop a new rule regarding what I post from other sources, as reliable as they may be. Of course, this post was more about the bad standards and corruption of Lebanese media but it also targeted an individual. Of course, wealthy individuals with political power or with ambitions of political power (like the Hariri family or the lousy Al-Hakim family in Iraq) will be treated like rulers by me: i.e. very shabbily.

PS So basically it is a policy against gossip or rumors and I have even avoided posting about the personal lives of rulers.