Ethics?
This article presents a vague set of blogging guidelines based on the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. I think it's a nice idea. And I think Jay Rosen's suggestion is really interesting (excuse the length):
What do we, as a community, need to do to enhance the respect internet journalists receive in the world at large? My first answer is: we have to look for it.
We should major in transparency; the “major” media will take a minor in that. Diversity of outlook in the reporters ultimately improves the reporting. The blogosphere has advantages there, especially as it does more reporting.
I think we have to accept that Big Media, which isn’t going anywhere, is society’s default legitimacy-distribution machine. But that doesn’t mean it works well. The machine itself can lose legitimacy without exactly falling apart. If you’re an upstart publisher of news and you suck at it, Big Media will try to ignore you. If you’re an upstart publisher of news and you’re really good at it, Big Media will try to ignore you. Then when you assume the shape of a writes-itself story—first bloggers to go the political conventions!—Big Media will over-cover you, spreading a small bit of understanding over lots and lots of stories. Six months later it’s time to debunk the trend they missed, then over-hyped and finally misdescribed. It’s not personal. It’s protective. It’s also cheaper than figuring out what’s going on.
And, I also think that no matter what guidelines are created or what ideas are brought forward about internet journalism and blogging ethics, there's still a kind of untamed frontier land quality about blogging, as we've discussed frequently in class. And as Jay Rosen goes on to say:
What some people can’t seem to get over is that other people can say any damn thing they want on the Internet! How can you trust any of it? is their natural reaction to all open systems. Closed systems—and professional journalism is one—develop trust in one way. Open systems have to do it a much different way. Expecting one to look like the other is unreasonable.
On the one hand, I appreciate that internet journalists and bloggers want to be taken seriously and respected (and hence, would benefit from ethical guidelines). On the other hand, I'm attracted to the wildness of the internet, the "anything goes" quality of it, and the fact that I have to do a little extra work to find the truth (or rather, to find the nearest thing to the truth). Perhaps as we move forward and as blogging becomes more important, we'll start seeing more stringent guidelines and ethical codes, but how, then, will the frontier land change?
What do we, as a community, need to do to enhance the respect internet journalists receive in the world at large? My first answer is: we have to look for it.
We should major in transparency; the “major” media will take a minor in that. Diversity of outlook in the reporters ultimately improves the reporting. The blogosphere has advantages there, especially as it does more reporting.
I think we have to accept that Big Media, which isn’t going anywhere, is society’s default legitimacy-distribution machine. But that doesn’t mean it works well. The machine itself can lose legitimacy without exactly falling apart. If you’re an upstart publisher of news and you suck at it, Big Media will try to ignore you. If you’re an upstart publisher of news and you’re really good at it, Big Media will try to ignore you. Then when you assume the shape of a writes-itself story—first bloggers to go the political conventions!—Big Media will over-cover you, spreading a small bit of understanding over lots and lots of stories. Six months later it’s time to debunk the trend they missed, then over-hyped and finally misdescribed. It’s not personal. It’s protective. It’s also cheaper than figuring out what’s going on.
And, I also think that no matter what guidelines are created or what ideas are brought forward about internet journalism and blogging ethics, there's still a kind of untamed frontier land quality about blogging, as we've discussed frequently in class. And as Jay Rosen goes on to say:
What some people can’t seem to get over is that other people can say any damn thing they want on the Internet! How can you trust any of it? is their natural reaction to all open systems. Closed systems—and professional journalism is one—develop trust in one way. Open systems have to do it a much different way. Expecting one to look like the other is unreasonable.
On the one hand, I appreciate that internet journalists and bloggers want to be taken seriously and respected (and hence, would benefit from ethical guidelines). On the other hand, I'm attracted to the wildness of the internet, the "anything goes" quality of it, and the fact that I have to do a little extra work to find the truth (or rather, to find the nearest thing to the truth). Perhaps as we move forward and as blogging becomes more important, we'll start seeing more stringent guidelines and ethical codes, but how, then, will the frontier land change?
Labels: Blogging
