A fascinating debate has started on Roy Greenslade’s Guardian blog over whether The Scotsman newspaper should have published comments by US presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s adviser Samantha Power. Power was quoted as saying Hillary Clinton was a monster but thought the comments were ‘off the record’ – not for publication. Power resigned following publication.

The full quote:

"In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio’s the only place they can win. She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything."

Greenslade thinks that the Scotsman was wrong to publish the comments. It was clear, in his view, that Power’s remark was off the record. He thinks that the paper went ahead because it knew it wouldn’t matter if Power vowed never to speak to its reporters again. It had its scoop. It woudn’t have taken the risk had the comments been made by a British politician, whom the paper would want to talk to in the future.

I was brought up on the following golden rules for talking to journalists:

1. There’s no such thing as off the record.
2. Never say anything that you wouldn’t want to see in print or broadcast; it’s the only safe approach;
3. Only go off the record to a journalist you know and trust. And even then remember rules 1 and 2 above – don’t say you haven’t been warned.

That said, most people in PR will go off the record, even to journalists they don’t know. It’s their way of guiding the journalist further than they could if they were talking on the record. But the dangers are always present, as Power has discovered to her cost.

Power’s comment was foolish – on or off the record – but would be seen as rather tame in British political life. True, there would have been contrived outrage if, for example, David Cameron’s aides had called Gordon Brown a monster. But most people in Britain would just dismiss such remarks as an example of the playground behaviour all too common in the Westminster village.