Oakland blogger Mayhill Fowler (pictured) says she was acting as a journalist when she taped Barack Obama at a private San Francisco fundraiser discussing small-town voters. A check of OpenSecrets.com shows she has contributed $2,250 to Obama and $250 to Republican Fred Thompson. Fowler tells The New York Times that she was initially reluctant to write about what Obama had said because she supports him. Her hesitation explains the four-day gap between the event and when she posted her scoop at OffTheBus.net, a Web site published by Huffington Post. Ultimately she said that if she didn’t write about it, she wouldn’t be worth her salt as a journalist, as the Times put it. Fowler, 61, is part of a network of 1,800 unpaid writers and researchers who contribute to OffTheBus. Obama supporters have called Fowler a plant for Hillary Clinton and say she was deceptive in getting into the fund-raiser. (Photo credit: OffTheBus.net)