Are you a blogger – a citizen-journalist empowered with a web log – who feels you are not accountable to the same ethics as mainstream journalists and can post anonymously without substantiation or through attributed research and firsthand sources or to temper opinions with balanced viewpoints and contextual information?
If you are, then you are being foolish. And you have to stop.
You are spreading unverified secondhand allegations, generalizations, rumors and rants from unaccredited or unaccountable resources. You are creating a culture of urban mythology and viral disinformation.
In the digital age where citizen journalists can have as much public presence and access as established mainstream media on the internet and where the doctrine of Web 2.0 espouses that content ought to come from the users themselves, truth and insight are lost amid a barrage of noise and lies. On the information highway, virtual stalking, pseudonym name-calling and avatar assassination are becoming commonplace, as was the case for Kathy Sierra atheadrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html. The World Wide Web is becoming a habitat for shysters, fear-mongers and wannabe pundits.
Here is another question:
Are you one of those who think we in the established media feel threatened by bloggers? This is a sentiment often expressed in heated online arguments between amateur journalists and their professional counterparts, as was the case on the comments page to the opinion page Tony Long, copy editor for Wired Magazine, atwww.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/theluddite/2007/04/luddite_0412. Quite a number of readers think that we mainstream media practitioners are entrenched elitists endangered by the rise of citizen journalists.
If you are, then you are mistaken and confused.
Established media entities will remain as they are – as the trusted sources of information – whether they publish with ink on murdered trees or with pixels on electronic screens. And we professional writers are not our publishers; adapting publishing’s business model to the virtual medium is not our prime concern.
The craft journalists possess remains necessary regardless of technology. The discipline and ethics of journalism comes not with the job title, but with the responsibility of having an audience. To exempt yourself from the rigors essential to truth telling is to forfeit your own credibility.
Technology - besides empowering the common man in nearly every endeavor: karaoke for singers, digital cameras for photographers and web logs for writers - has not only led to the democratization of the field but also to amateurism in content and craft, proving that tools alone do not make an artisan. What distinguishes a bona fide media organization is no longer its reach with audiences but its credibility to the public.
True, there is much we all can fault mainstream media: the blatant self-promotion of television networks of their own shows on their news programs, the favoring of know-nothing celebrity columnists and the regurgitation of press releases by newspapers, and the devolution of objective feature writing into slick advertorials in magazines. But again, these commercial considerations are the business of publishers; the true journalists among us persist within and without the system. And the faults of conventional media do not excuse exponents of the new media from not doing better.
Needless to say, there are many excellent examples of online amateur journalism. But these are still far from the norm.
We cannot pigeonhole blogs and other emerging technologies as simply venues for ranting. Those who clamor for accountability, accuracy and craft appreciate the technology’s potential. Those who persist in their amateurish ways stunt new media’s maturation.
I myself am both a professional journalist and a blogger.
Personally, it matters more that my writings appear on the web at www.manilatimes.net and my own blog.360.yahoo.com/hanepdesigns than on print. Any newspaper – no matter how relevant or insightful – will, by the end of the day, be nothing more than wrapping paper for Christmas décor, salted fish and dead bodies left on the highway. Any glossy magazine – no matter how glamorous or racy – will, after a few months, be nothing more than a dog-eared dust collector piled in a dentists’ waiting room. But what is published on the web is most often available 24/7 globally, free and reproducible without generation loss.
It also makes all the difference that I am a fulltime staff writer and columnist for a bona fide newspaper as well a regular cover story and features contributor to several established magazines. My livelihood depends on my writing. I am only as good as my last work. My real name is on every article and I can be sued, fired, corrected, castigated or even commended. I am accountable to my readers, to my editors and to my publishers. I take responsibility. It comes with the territory of being a writer, regardless of the medium.
The clamor for maturity in the new media is rising. Tim O'Rielly – internet guru, Web 2.0 exponent and mainstream publishing magnate – has proposed the Blogger's Code of Conduct. Its draft currently reads in part:
- We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog. We define unacceptable content as anything included or linked to that:
- is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
- is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person,
- infringes upon a copyright or trademark
- violates an obligation of confidentiality
- violates the privacy of others
- is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
- We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person.
- We connect privately before we respond publicly.
- When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action. We will cooperate with law enforcement to protect the target of the threat.
- We do not allow anonymous comments.
- We ignore the trolls. We prefer not to respond to nasty comments about our blog or us as long as they don't veer into abuse or libel.
Read it in its entirety at radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/04/draft_bloggers_1.html and apply it. And quit being foolish, mistaken and confused.
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