Seymour Hersh, Twitter and a Lesson in "Off the Record"

As a journalist, I’ve occasionally been told things that were “off the record.” But I was astonished to hear those words from legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.

I was standing an arm’s length from the Pulitzer-Prize-winner, live-tweeting as he spoke on camera about the state of journalism. About 15 minutes in he said, “This is all off the record.”

My head shot up and I replied, “I’ve been tweeting the whole time, and you’re speaking to camera.” He said the segment being shot was for “internal use” by the conference organizers and went on to say how much he hated Twitter.