the us press is corrupt. they corruptly hype lying bloggers and their toxic vapors. why bother? read news in foreign language and screw the local apparatchiks.
Nur al-Cubicle | Email | Homepage | 05.09.05 - 11:34 am | #

Ethics, like morals and values, are subjective and personal, so I don't think you could impose one set of ethics on bloggers without stamping out the individual expression that - at least for me - is the major strength of the medium. I have my personal voice, and blogging allows me to put it out there for the world to access.

Individual (non-corporate) voices haven't been taken this seriously since before newspapers - gossip and self-published pamphlets were the media 150 years ago. Newspapers (and tv after) are businesses that make money for investors first, self-policing ethical institutions second. In my eyes their financial interests informs their bias more than any individual political bias. Bias in bloggers is often more visceral, and I think more interesting. When I read liberalavengenerdotcom I don't have any illusion of objectivity, but often I get more than I would on fox news.

They are obviously threatened by the new medium of blogging, because it will bite into their profits. Each successive new medium has been libeled by the "old guard" before them. newspapers were "yellow journalism" full of muckrakers. Radio and TV were criticised by newspapers... A look at the past always informs perspective of the present.
ls | Email | Homepage | 05.09.05 - 12:04 pm | #

I largely agree with ls. My personal take: One of blogging's charms is the express amount of responsibility it places upon the reader to sort out soap-box fist-shaking, from enlightened but slanted commentary, from regurgitation of fact, from... etc. I compare it to our contemporary romance with the personal memoir--that convenient blend of auto/biography and fiction that allows for blurred lines between "fact" and "less/greater-than-fact," so forth. It can read like send-aggrandizing bullshit, but dispensing of strict allegiance to hardcore fact grants creative license that takes the genre places it couldn't go otherwise.

To me, it's refreshing to be self-consciously AND admittedly, *expressly* subjective--and to self-consciously expose ourselves to the same. I think an ethical code would be distracting, for one, and maybe more importantly, would create a depressing situation similar to the utter failures of mainstram journalism. On television we have, of course, FOX "news" framing its fire-breathing right-winged dragons' personal agendas as newsreporting. I'm sure we get a lot of the same in blogging, but readers have a vastly wider range of choices. Unfortunately for the lazy and busy alike, that means READING, reading the same blogs relatively consistently, to figure out who does what.
thelizabeth | Email | Homepage | 05.09.05 - 3:16 pm | #

Thanks for the thoughtful responses. My vision of a potential ethical code would not even address ideological slant, or biased coverage. This is the essence of political blogging, and those who get into it must "learn how to read them".

An example of what I am getting at, though, would be how to deal with charges of libel as ls mentioned.

How would we define the boundaries of "libel" in the blogosphere? For instance, if one site publishes an irresponsible and unfounded charge, say that a politician had an extramarital affair, and many blogs followed suit by repeating the charge, would only the original blog be held accountable? Would the other blogs be required to issue corrections?

And the question of accountability comes up here. What is the punishment? Clearly, the blog's audience would not be the appointed judge in the matter. It holds an interest in that blog's integrity and accuracy.

Would we have to establish a "blog court"? Could we trust such a thing?

It gets too muddled too quickly. If it wasn't clear from the post, I would be harshly critical of any movement towards a blogger's code of ethics. I set my own rules for my own writing, and I cannot expect any other blogger to abide by the same set of standards. Of course that does not mean that I can't judge them by my own set code.
Ryan | Email | Homepage | 05.09.05 - 3:41 pm | #

I think I used libel above too casually. I think "belittled" is more accurate for what I was thinking - established media try to keep new mediums from succeeding/growing.

I completely agree with thelizabeth. Couldn't have said it better. Personal responsibility in media is a concept the last few generations have compeltely forgotten because of television's force-feed effect. People used to choose books based on the credibility of the authors and/or the buzz surrounding them. I see very little choice in today's corporate media because I think it's all coming from the same point of view.

The media's not objective, it's risk-adverse. If the financial performance of a media producer is most important, is it any surprise that they all copy one another and keep away from investigative journalism? Fear of libel (real meaning) keeps stories quiet when there's no evidence - is that idea? I like all the gossip and rumor mongering online. I like to take responsibility for what I think and believe. I think a lot of information is being kept hidden through these conventions.

So what if a blog says someone's had an extramarital affair - if I said it as a private citizen, there's no question that it's just my opinion that I'm free to make. It's the inflated sense of institution that gives old media it's power - a blog is just an extension of my personal free speech. Should letters and email be subject to libel laws?

Digital duplication (thinking of the internet as a virtual ditto machine) is going to render old media laws completely obsolete in a generation. I'd like to see a model without corporations, where individuals post their opinions, and other individuals choose to read them. Cut out the middle man. Now that an individual can afford to distribute their content to mass audiences, what purpose do they serve?
ls | Email | Homepage | 05.09.05 - 4:25 pm | #

Now that an individual can afford to distribute their content to mass audiences, what purpose do they serve?

I may be wrong, but they would still serve as the gatherers of information. Surely, this medium has the potential to destroy the current set of pundits in the time scale of decades, depending upon how quick medium- to large-sized cities implement WiFi systems.

This may render for-profit news declawed, but there will always be the niche for down and dirty fact gathering. It will be up to the whole lot of us to make sure there are people paid to give us the material with which to form opinions.

Do you see an alternative to this?
Ryan | Email | Homepage | 05.09.05 - 7:05 pm | #

I think gathering of news could be automated. Just a theoretical... I don't see the AP or reuters shutting down in my lifetime, but I do think newspapers could be eliminated - already local news in smaller markets is a joke - my hometown paper is a ganette USA today regurgitator with a skeleton crew of reporters to cover local elections and fires.
ls | Email | Homepage | 05.09.05 - 10:40 pm | #

Where do you live, Is?
bedrocktruth | Email | Homepage | 05.10.05 - 6:06 pm | #

I would imagine that any code of ethics that could apply to all bloggers would have to be pretty simple -- maybe just a commitment to truth-telling and good-faith reporting. Perhaps some kind of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval could be awarded to bloggers who have established a record of integrity.

I don't know. But I do believe that subjectivity and honesty can co-exist.

Excellent post, btw. I came here from your comment at Lauren's blog. Good stuff.
B² | Email | Homepage | 05.11.05 - 1:41 am | #

Also here via feministe.

My reservations about setting up a unified theory of blog ethics is that "blog" is such a wide-ranging beast, much like "book" is. Are hobby bloggers who write primarily about their pets, cooking and knitting going to be held to the same standards as pundit-type political bloggers? What happens if we're dealing with bloggers who combine the two modes? Who defines the categories? Who draws the lines?

Plus blogging includes people from all walks of life, from firebrand grandmothers, to cautious academics, to pre-teen boys, to college-age women, etc. They are not all doing the same thing, nor with the same intent, yet they _are_ all bloggers.

And that's not even bringing the international and foreign-language aspects of this into the picture.

It would be more fruitful to talk about setting up a code of ethics for citizens of the world -- because that's really what we're talking about here.
Rana | Email | Homepage | 05.11.05 - 8:02 pm | #