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Blogging and media ethics
Posted by Melissa Byrd 11/7/2005 1:12:00 PM

Like it or not, blogs are here to stay. At least until the next big thing in communication comes along anyway. Personally, I love blogs. I find many of them fascinating- in good ways and in bad. With that said, I also fully understand the implications they have on traditional mass media.

Professionals in print, online and broadcast media must now compete with Joe Blow Blogger to capture an ever-diminishing audience. Distrust in mainstream media gives people a reason to seek out other ways of getting information. People tend to seek out information that reinforces their beliefs. And really, what is more interesting to many of today's entertainment-hungry and time-crunched readers and viewers? A 1500-word article in the New York Times covering Hurricane Katrina the day after the disaster? Or a first-hand account of a blogger right in the thick of it- typing on her keyboard as the news happens? With the click of her mouse, the news as she sees it is transmitted to millions around the world. You cannot tell me this phenomenon will not affect the mainstream media.

Blogs, however, come with their own set of issues: credibility, to name just one. As I mentioned above, the blogger reports the news as she sees it. Accountability and newsworthiness do not seem to matter much in the blogosphere. If I can sign my cat up for a Xanga account, and no one is the wiser, how do we know when people are telling the truth? More importantly, do people even care? With many newspapers facing circulation woes and network newscasts finding they need to make major changes to stay competitive, it seems we are moving into a whole new era of information-gathering. Citizen journalism is a fairly new concept and many of its effects remain to be seen, but it will definitely be interesting to see the push and pull between citizen journalists and mainstream media.

Death to blogs
Posted by Daniel Cuellar 5/13/2005 5:01:52 PM

Who started the blogging phase, and where can I find him so I can beat the crap out of him? Bloggers are the worst thing to happen to journalism. They're an all-access diary of the 21st century. What makes people think they have interesting information to share? I have yet to come across more than a handful of blogs that were thought-provoking, insightful, or even newsworthy. Hopefully blogging fades into obscurity within the next few years. However, as a student, I know that it is not likely. Our teachers forced us to start our own bloggers (mine's been hit about a dozen times), leaving an entire generation of reporters thinking that bloggers are an acceptable form of communicating news. Although I don't know anyone who actually gets their news from blogs, I imagine it's as trendy in big cities as Starbucks. Therefore, I applaud Chip Scanlan for sticking to traditional means for getting news. Blogging is one more way that the internet is killing traditional journalism. Of course there is one more burning question: who checks the accuracy of the blogs? As for me, I'll only accept information that has been fact-checked.

Blogging and the Future of Journalism
Posted by Anne Grantski 5/13/2005 2:31:14 PM

I recently had the opportunity to listen to a lecture by Davis �Buzz� Merritt, former editor of the Wichita Eagle and author of Knightfall. He said there was no doubt that the newspaper is a dying medium and media like Internet blogging will grow to replace it.

I tend to agree with him. While I value newspaper journalism, it is often easier to receive my news from the Internet. Not only is it easier, but I also have unlimited and often free resources at my fingertips. I feel like I become my own gatekeeper.

Yet there are drawbacks to this freedom of information. As a student and journalist, I�ve been trained to evaluate whether my sources of information are credible. I don�t think this is the case for most of the people who use the Internet as their primary source of information. The blogging trend can only further confuse the issue.

The World Co., which owns the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper, online and cable news divisions in my city (Lawrence, Kansas), has begun to converge its media. (You can read more about it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4599579). As a part of this, they sponsor blogs on the Lawrence.com Web site. I feel this is a dangerous practice. Should news organizations sponsor personal blogs, it will become even more difficult to decipher what sources are credible.

Blogging, better than sliced bread
Posted by Molly White 5/12/2005 4:58:23 PM

First of I would question anyone who obtained their information from blogging. If people think that the media has credibility issues, try to imagine who the people are writing to you. It is hopes that they will catch someone attention which I think would be hard to do when every 7.4 seconds a new blog is created. It is not that I have a problem with people blogging for hobby purposes, but when you are sending messages that are full of biased opinions that will alter people�s perceptions then I think there is an issue. I just really hope that people don�t substitute news information for blogging. I will admit, I do not blog, if you could tell. I don�t have time to sit at my computer and read, if not for anything else, it just hurts my eyes. I do recognize this as a new media outlet and technology boost and I am understanding of and happy for people who have found a new hobby, I just hope it does not get too out of hand.

Blogs another media?
Posted by Adam Sechrist 4/12/2005 4:51:10 PM

The question of the day is will the weblog phenomenon become an important part of jouranlism.

My answer is the weblog will be a part of Journalism but not a major factor. I have quite a few reasons for my thoughts. No one knows how accuarte a blog really is. Anyone can have a blog but the question is, is it a journalistic blog? Are the facts correct, is the information from a credible source? When someone is reading a blog they have to go back to the basic journalistic rules, fact checking and credibility of sources.

Anyone can start a blog and be a self-proclamed expert on any subject. The problem is, is that person really an expert, do they really know what they are talking about?

Time for an example. the author of the nutritionf fit blog is named Sherry and that is all the information that is provided about her. About the only credibility for the source would be a link she provided to an American Heart Association website. How am I expected to believe what I am reading when I have no idea who the person is that wrote this. If i were to read an article about this done by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox or any other credible news organization I would have an easier time believing the information.

To get back to the point I'm trying to make, people will read weblogs to get some information but hopefully, people will still point their browsers to credible news sources such as ABC, CNN, etc. to search for a story on the topic there before believing everything they read.

More than Money at Stake
Posted by Ty Beaver 4/6/2005 10:11:56 PM

Mainstream media has more to fear from the blogosphere than just lost revenue and readers. With the ease and non-regulation of such a void of information, critical concepts such as neutrality and ethics will be under heavy fire.
Newspapers, broadcast, magazines, and other mainstream media have the obligation to be as unbiased and informative in their reporting as possible. This is guaranteed by the training journalists receive, and the funds it takes to run a successful media outlet. Only companies can afford to run and print their own paper, or run and operate their own TV station, and with that comes requirement of not committing libel, which can imply a heavy financial burden if violated.
Anyone, however, can have a blog. And there�s literally no risk involved. You can say anything you want as long as you don�t threaten someone�s life. Some people with blogs provide political pseudo-news, having articles from a biased perspective. Drudge Report and Slate.com are examples of weblogs that purport to be reliable sources of news, but have been accused to have bias. But they are blogs, and thus unregulated, and so people believe they get away with it.
The ease by which people get to the blogosphere, and the pseudo-journalism that so heavily pervades it, puts all journalism, the business and the art, at great risk.

My addiction to blog
Posted by Therese Hart 2/17/2005 12:05:22 AM

I began my blogging experience in December, 2004, when I created a blog, not knowing what to expect. A few months later, I find myself a self-professed blog addict.

I believe that all bloggers desire for some one out there to validate what we have to say; whether it be a "mommy" blog, a "knitting" blog, the ad nauseum, political blog, or the "way out in left field" blog, we all want to have our day of fame. This is where traffic exchanges come in. Free and very popular, veteran and newly initiated bloggers join BlogExplosion, BlogClicker and Blogazoo.

Mainstream media has concerns that the blogosphere will diminish its readership. Let's face it, we who blog are also the ones who read the daily paper; watch CNN, and troll other news-related genres. We are connected to what's going on in the world and we have a distinct voice somewhere out there. Mainstream media is paying attention. The infamous Glenn Reyonlds, Instapundit, has drawn widespread attention to the world of blogging.

There is no doubt, the blogosphere is here, and here to stay. It's an exciting movement and many obscure blogs have become a part of mainstream media. It is a new genre that deserves the respect of mainstream media.

Advocacy blogging
Posted by Kate Benson 2/2/2005 8:49:32 PM

A graduate degree from Mizzou left me in debt, and an additional 30 books to lug, but it mattered little to me. With a bright future before me, or so I thought, I inthusiastically plunged back into the journalism workforce.

However, life had other plans, and nobody asked me. Health problems diagnosed at the beginning of the program worsened.

In addition to profound, bone-crushing fatigue and morphine-level pain, I began experiencing anomia, orthographic dysgraphia, and severe memory problems on a daily basis. I was rapidly losing my ability to concentrate, multi-task, and focus.

I was a walking advertisement for a failed assignments editor and my doctors just kept running more tests unable to help me.

I have a genetic neurological disorder for which there is no cure.

My calling as a journalist seemed to have hit an roadblock I could not overcome. I became permanently disabled and home-bound. To pass the time during the few hours I was capable I began the slow process of researching my disorder. When two of my three children were also diagnosed into this living hell, it galvanized me.

I decided to use my journalistic research skills to expose the volumes of inaccurate and biased information on this disorder. Like others before me, including patients with polio, diabetes, ulcers, and MS, I had to battle, not only my illness, but psychiatric stigma as well.

Grassy knolls are not my interest, but the stigma, based on a single hypothesis theory, diametrically opposed to a biological hypothesis, increasingly failed to withstand intensive research analysis and critical thinking.

I began my blog as a means of making my analysis public. I've been slowing posting over the past two months reaching 500 hits today. Presentation is somewhat tongue-in-cheek as the well reseached facts are bone dry, but people are listening and that's all I ask.

What the heck are they talking talking about: Neurological CFS
http://harmony58.typepad.com/

Why I blog
Posted by gina mace 1/27/2005 4:16:32 AM

I blog to release my inner Erma Bombeck. Blogging gives me the opportunity to exercise my wit (or sometimes lack thereof) without the stress of a deadline. It's fun and it's anonymous. (findingmygroove.blog-city.com)

A step-up from email
Posted by Dan Housman 1/26/2005 8:01:49 AM

I have been blogging since September. (www.danhousman.com/blogger). I'm not a journalist and don't consider myself one. I enjoy blogging as a media where I am the real voice without any external filters in the way. I generally use the blog as more of a diary and I don't get a large volume of readers but the ones who do read are generally friends and peers who I wouldn't want to burden with emails but do want to make thoughts available to.

I don't think blogs are a threat to the folks who do research and create news as a profession. I know the difference between reading a blog and a news source and the quality of content is meaningful enough to stick to news when I want researched professional content and blogs when I want ad-hoc opinions.

I also don't see the problem with encouraging people to write in ways that wouldn't be sanctioned by english teachers. People learn to write by reading and writing regardless of how or what. Saying blogging encourages bad writing habits is like saying that open mike nights encourage people to be bad musicians.

Why Writers Should Blog
Posted by Neola Tany 1/25/2005 7:21:55 PM

A blogging writer who offers great advice for beginners is Georganna Hancock. She recently wrote a piece on why writers should blog (http://www.writers-edge.info/2005/01/writers-blog.htm) that some readers found compelling.

To Blog or Not to Blog
Posted by Kiersten Conner-Sax 1/25/2005 11:49:17 AM

Hi Chip-

I started a blog called 50 Tries (kiersten.blogs.com), partly to address some of the issues you're talking about.

I'm on a quest to have a Shouts & Murmurs essay accepted at the New Yorker. I started the blog to keep me going, so that friends could read my submissions and I could get feedback that's more than just a canned rejection message.

Best,
Kiersten

One Way Out
Posted by Lex Alexander 1/24/2005 10:37:51 AM

I've been a blogger of one kind or another since 1997. Currently, I'm charged with turning the paper for which I write and edit into an open-source journalism operation. (You might have read about it.)

I see blogs as one potentially useful tool among many in making that happen. And I think that that change MUST happen if newspapers, or any kind of local audience aggregator with the resources to pursue enterprise and watchdog reporting, are to remain in business.

But beyond that, you can't cover politics well these days without reading blogs (of a variety of political persuasions), which tend to get to the issues well ahead of mainstream media. And, I would argue, it's getting harder and harder to cover your own community well without reading your community's blogs. You say there aren't any? You're probably wrong, but if there aren't, there probably soon will be.

Check out Ian Williams' comments
Posted by Cary McMullen 1/24/2005 10:27:43 AM

Just a reinforcing note to what a couple of people have posted already, i.e., the undisciplined nature of thought and writing on blogs:
The incomparable Ian Williams says this in typically witty and acerbic fashion, and pursues an alarming trend, the influence of blogs on books. See maximsnews.com@app.topica.com.

For myself, I can't spend very much time looking at blogs. I depend on a few for news links that I wouldn't find otherwise, but it's just thoroughly exhausting.
Cary McMullen
The Ledger
Lakeland, Fla.

This isn't a fad
Posted by Jenny D 1/24/2005 5:39:45 AM

I was the editor of magazine back in 1996 when people were coming to me, pitching websites I could pay to join with my content. They didn't have it quite right yet, but in the near decade since, the web has gotten bigger, not smaller. I have dropped two newspaper subscriptions because with my RSS feed, I don't need them.

For newspeople, that fact should be sobering, not amusing. I'm not alone in this.

Moreover, what I've found is that news reporters are a mile wide and inch deep on speciality topics. Particuarly my topic: education. Most news stories by specialty beat reporters are terrible. Thin and not well informed, written as though they were campaign pieces.

At my blog, OTOH, a number of former journalists, current scholars, teachers, policymakers are having a lively and smart debate over the pacing of teaching, the philosophy of learning, the value of scripts, the professionalization of teachers. Where are the current journalists? Why aren't they here too?

Chip, what I worry is that they have all taken the attitude you have. That it's a joke, and a passing amusement. A kind of verbal unhinged-ness that is not nearly as solid as the voice-of-God journalism coming out of the MSM. If that's the message here, then you're msising the point. This is a new form. It will complete with the VOG style. It is preferable for many topics.

I find my students write more now, and better because of blogs. They are the letter writers of old, in a speedier climate. The act of putting words into cyberspace has suddenly put a premium on knowing and using words.

This is a good thing. And it will change journalism....a lot.

Focus, speed and anti-procrastination
Posted by Andreas Andersen 1/24/2005 3:25:26 AM

As a newcomer journalist working full time at a Norwegian weekly newsletter, my blog has helped me improve my performance in several key areas:

It helps me focus my reading of news sources on the net. I became much more of an active reader of online news after I started my blog, as I now routinely consider the deeper meaning and consequences of any particular story I read and whether it's worth linking to or not.

Regular posting on my blog has helped speed up my writing considerably. It used to take me more than an hour and half to write a small, simple 1,500 character piece from one news source (this is the newsletters smallest format). Last week I set a personal record of 20 minutes. According to my editor it has also helped my shake my academic vocabulary and form. The blogging style is quick and efficient writing at its best, and apparently it has had a positiv influence on my style.

Writing in my blog has helped me overcome my angst for the blank page. Previously, I procrastinated in all kinds of ways, never failing to start a fresh pot of coffee, clearing my desk, checking my mail, or similar diversions aimed at "getting me to the zone", but hardly ever delivering. Nowadays I just start tapping away effortlessly, and I enter "the zone" regularly after a few minutes of trying and failing. In my blogwriting, there is little pondering and planning of a post. Similarly, by lowering my "head-to-keyboard" threshold, I have reduces the fruitless pondering on my regular stories as well.

To Blog or Not to Blog
Posted by Gary Smith 1/24/2005 1:08:17 AM

I'm an active blogger and have been so since last July (04). I am a police chief in Northfield, MN and I use my weblog to inform, educaate and engage my readers. It's a blend of my personal life, my policing philosophy and information about our great staff we have here.

I recently discussed a local columnst in the Minnapolis Star Trib who has been bashing bloggers and an amusing followup letter to the editor from one of his former bosses.

I provide space for officers who have been killed in the line of duty and I engage my peers from around the word in discussions about policing philosophy and new frontiers in the profession.

It's been a form of theapy for me as well and helps me to keep my thoughts organized and forces me to stay on top of news both locally and internationally.

I pay for the operation out of my own pocket and do it on my own time to ensure editorial license.

You can view the blog at: http://garygsmith.net

To Blog or Not to Blog
Posted by Gary Smith 1/24/2005 1:01:44 AM

Yeah, Ok
Posted by Christopher Frankonis 1/23/2005 4:03:10 PM

"Blogs worry me. As a teacher of writing, I'm concerned that blogging encourages potential writers to 'run off at the mouth' without taking time to consider the coherence of the argument or the quality of the writing."

Writing teachers worry me. As a blogger and generally inteilligent person, I'm concerned that writing teachers encourage potential thinkers fo "run off at the mouth" without taking time to consider the over-generalizations of their argument or the quality of their thinking.

Like a newsletter
Posted by Tracy Lightfoot 1/23/2005 12:39:33 AM

I use my blog as a great way to keep my family and friends all up to date on what I'm up to. It's easier than calling 50 people or sending 50 emails -- I just type up an entry and everyone reads it at their own convenience.

I disagree that blogs will take much away from traditional news media. Think of most blogs as online versions of the Enquirer and all those other tabloids. It's not "real" news, and most people know it. Sure, maybe a few solid blogs will emerge, but most of them will still be just a long ed-op column. Blogging straight news could happen -- but how would anyone know what was what?

Blogging, What is it good for?
Posted by Seshu Badrinath 1/22/2005 8:33:24 PM

Blogging at Tiffinbox is a sort of release. We are all subjected to "information overload." Those that interest me, be it a person, an event or a phenomenon get's blogged in a perhaps vain attempt to make sense of it all.

It is also a way for me to connect with other like-minded photojournalists, artists, writers interested in the South Asian diaspora. I have "met" a lot of people online, when they comment on something I have posted. Sometimes these discussions go off-line and we actually end up discussing things in greater detail on the phone. Sometimes, at journalism conferences such as the one hosted by the South Asian Journalists Association, I actually get to meet some of my audience. It's quite a thrill to know that there are people who have either subscribed to my webfeed or visit the site on a regular basis.

Tiffinbox is also an attempt to bring people together - photojournalists, especially, to show off their work as daily photo exhibits or Flash-based slide shows. The focus of the site is visual communication, though there is a deep and enduring respect for the written word as well. If I can bring photojournalists and writers to cooperate/collaborate on projects, I would think that my blog has achieved some success. I am still a long way off on that ultimate goal.

Seshu Badrinath
http://www.tiffinbox.org

Why I Don't Blog
Posted by Barbara Graham 1/22/2005 4:47:32 PM

Blogs worry me. As a teacher of writing, I'm concerned that blogging encourages potential writers to "run off at the mouth" without taking time to consider the coherence of the argument or the quality of the writing.

And as a professional writer, I see blogs as undermining our efforts to be paid fairly for what we write. If ideas and opinions are freely available on the web (in the form of blogs), professionals who carefully research and write articles for publications will no longer have a voice. The serious consequence of this will be a proliferation of inadequately-researched and perhaps even grossly distorted blogs, which the poor reader will have no way to sort out.
Barbara Florio Graham. www.SimonTeakettle.com

http://www.doctoralbany.blogspot.com
Posted by Doctor Albany 1/22/2005 9:27:26 AM

A superlative blog by a former local newspaper columnist.

http://www.doctoralbany.blogspot.com

Blizzard of Blogs
Posted by Albany Eye 1/22/2005 8:34:18 AM

It's gotten so easy to start blogging that the web is becoming polluted with them. You can see this when you conduct a search ---your results almost always contain blog entries. This is a situation the major search engines will sooner or later need to address.
The blogging phenom is likely to follow the same curve as the boom in personal home pages. Many will vanish or die of neglect after people lose interest.
My blog, http://albanyeye.blogspot.com/ , focuses on a narrow topic (media in Albany, NY) aimed at a small audience, so like a lot of people, I think my writing has a place on the web. Since I wish to remain anonymous, I have to be careful not to write the same things in my blog that I say out loud in the newsroom.

Excuse to write
Posted by George Fragos 1/21/2005 10:45:22 PM

A voice not heard, a word not seen -- why bother. A blog solves that problem for me and encourages me to write and think extemporaniously. The words may still not be seen but they are there in case someone looks. Any excuse to write is a good thing.

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