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Why bloggers should adopt standards

How bloggers handle matters of ethics and disclosure vary greatly, reports AP's Anick Jesdanun, but several prominent ones say bloggers will have to adopt certain basic standards if they want to be taken seriously.

Blogging is more like a conversation, and "you can't develop a code of ethics for conversations," said David Weinberger, a prominent blogger and research fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "A conversation with your best friend would become stilted and alienating."
Others, however, have pushed written guidelines.

Jonathan Dube, managing producer at MSNBC.com and publisher of CyberJournalist.net, modified the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics and urged fellow bloggers to adopt it. The principles: Be honest and fair. Minimize harm. Be accountable.

Longtime blogger Rebecca Blood circulated guidelines that call for disclosing any conflicts of interest, publicly correcting any misinformation and linking to any source materials referenced in postings.

"It seems pretty clear to me that having some kind of standard contributes to an individual blogger's own credibility," she said.

....Dan Gillmor, a former newspaper columnist now studying citizen-driven journalism through blogging, said bloggers who want an audience will voluntarily adopt principles of fairness, thoroughness, accuracy and transparency.

"No one's bound by these rules," Gillmor said, "but I think some norms will emerge for people who want to be taken seriously."

Discussion

3 comments about 'Why bloggers should adopt standards'

Good Day,

I agree that neojournalists should adhere to certain standards as prescribed in you article. The problem is that not all bloggers are wannabe journalists. Some are just personal meanderings. Didn't your diary used to have a little lock on it?
We should consider another name/catagory for us journalistic types. Maybe we should just call them "Journals" instead of Blogs.

Posted by Jef Knight at January 29, 2005 8:12 AM

As in mainstream news sources, credibility is gained not automatically assigned. The National Enquirer is not noted as a source of important and credible information, nor does it try to be a news source. Just like the blog, a site that is personal in source may not gain credibility by merely reporting opinions.

Standarization is important, although a personal blog will not necessarily implement the standards and therefore may or may not gain credibility depending on what is reported, but many will still use the information provided to form opinions.

Standards are less important than guidelines would be. We should try to support guidelines to help establish credibility rather than try to implement standards.

Ethics on the other hand is an entirely different argument. Which I think should be approached with the same understanding as the ethics in normal journalistic rules.

Posted by Nolte at January 31, 2005 6:34 AM

All the talk about standards and guidelines is bullshit. Credibility is earned by being credible, not by following guidelines. The wide-open internet, it's up to the reader to determine who has a valid point or not, and standards or guidelines are meaningless anyway. The readers will decide who is credible or not on their own, ethical standards or not.

Posted by old buick tanker at February 3, 2005 7:13 AM

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