Question: Can you trust e-mail only interviews?

Salon raises some interesting questions in its article about the TIME magazine cover story about Sarah Palin. Seems TIME did the whole interview was done by e-mail. Salon points out that it wasn't until the 8th graf that the magazine made it clear the responses came by e-mail.

Time conducts cover story Sarah Palin "interview" over e-mail

Here are some of the questions Salon asks:

Like, how did Time know this wasn't Rebecca Mansour answering questions? Or Todd? Did Palin's handlers rule out conducting the whole thing in GChat? (Palin's not still using that Yahoo! e-mail address, right?)

Good questions all.

Let's get an ethical discussion going here:

  1. Have you ever done an interview based soley on e-mail or IM?
  2. Have you used e-mail or IM as a means to follow-up on an interview?
  3. What are your thoughts about using e-mail or IM to conduct interviews?