Wednesday, March 21, 2007

More on What Journalists Do and What Bloggers Should Do.

As first reported by Jill, WCPN will be considering the question of whether/when bloggers are journalists tomorrow on The Sound of Ideas. As part of the groundwork, Dan Moulthrop sent George an email asking for input from BFD readers. The discussion about the resulting post is lively as always. Head over and add your two cents.

I'm not clear on whether WCPN is running their usual Thursday roundtable with the bloggers/journalists question as one topic or if they are devoting the show to the question. In any event, I have a meeting in Canton tomorrow morning, so it's unlikely that I will be able to call in and wait fruitlessly on hold as usual.

Meanwhile, a friend with, let's say, MSM sympathies sent me an email with a link to the ethical standards of the Society for Professional Journalists. I don't mean to suggest that the mere fact that journalists have a set of ethical guidelines should somehow tilt the debate. If you look through the standards, it is clear that many are only honored in the breach. What's more, the standards are merely aspirational. Unlike my former profession, no one gets a license to practice journalism that can be pulled if he violates the standards.

Nonetheless, it got me to thinking: What are the ethics for bloggers? I have some ideas, but time is short. If you have ideas, post them in comments and I'll be back with mine tonight.

1 comments:

Jill said...

FYI and full disclosure: I've been a member of the bar, I've been a licensed social worker and I've belonged to SPJ for three or four years now. I know what the codes look like and how much they're adhered to and you are correct - in no way is the SPJ code comparable to the ones which, if you violate, can get your license revoked.

As for the show tomorrow, I'm pretty sure it's the typical roundtable based on the intro from this morning's SOI.

I've promised to be a good little whatever I am and not clog the phones, or the email inboxes. :)