Blogging 101 - Blog Ethics

By Matt Wood in Blogging 101

If 2004 was the year blogs came of age, it’s because they were forced to. Bloggers covering the American presidential election and the war in Iraq became a standard part of the mainstream media conversation. The contentious political season gave many of them their wish: to be treated like professional journalists. But greater exposure also demands greater accountability. Blogging is a free-form medium; its biggest strengths are transparency and the lack of a traditional editorial control structure. Bloggers enthusiastically seize upon any public issue and make it their own. But this enthusiasm, and the speed with which it can be communicated to the world’s most public forum without any oversight, can lead bloggers into dangerous ethical territory of plagiarism and libel. This year, as blogs became some of the primary sources of political coverage, their enthusiastic creators were forced to grow up. If they wish to be taken seriously, they need to adhere to a new set of ethical standards.

Weblogs are so popular because they empower people to add their voices to the formerly closed media discussion. Bloggers are famous for their editors-be-damned approach to writing. Their unfiltered view of the world injects personality and style into the news cycle. Bloggers wear their biases on their sleeves. They post gut reactions to events within seconds. Unburdened by the constraints and costs of a major media organization or publishing house, the only audience they have to please is themselves. But the blog’s greatest strengths—individuality, immediacy, and style—may also be its greatest weakness. Speed and candor are not substitutes for accuracy and fairness. As Dan Rather can attest, bloggers gleefully pounce on mistakes made by the media. But they seize on mistakes by other bloggers with greater ferocity. A blogger in a rush to break a story will shoot himself in the foot with a sloppy or false posting.

During the spring of 2004, Sean-Paul Kelley saw a tremendous spike in traffic to his political blog, The Agonist. Kelley posted nearly live battlefront news from Iraq at a prolific rate, up to several dozen updates a day. Occasionally he attributed his information to other news organizations, but much of it seemed to come from a bevy of inside sources around the world. However in April, after being accused of plagiarism by another blogger named General Roy of Strategic Armchair Command, Kelley admitted to Wired News that he copied many of his posts verbatim, without any attribution, from an email newsletter by Stratfor, an Austin, Texas intelligence company. In some of his posts he even claimed Stratfor’s data came from his own confidential sources.

The questionable nature of his sources notwithstanding, Kelley is a talented, passionate writer. At the South By Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas that same spring, he deftly skewered the current media coverage of the war, offering up his site as an alternative. Why would such an ambitious and talented reporter risk his reputation by plagiarizing? Kelley told Wired that he did it out of career ambition. “I was trying to develop my own sources,” he said. “If I could throw stuff out there to get some eyebrows raised as to ‘who is this guy?’ then I might get some encrypted email [leaks from anonymous government sources].”

Reaction to Kelley’s revelation in the blogosphere was mixed. The Washington Post’s Cynthia Webb said that many of her readers didn’t think it was that big of a deal because blogging is supposed to be a free-flowing medium. The fact that Kelley copied some of his material mattered less than getting the information out in the first place. But many others, including Dean Esmay of deanesmay.com, said that Kelley was clearly wrong. “I don’t think it’s about journalistic standards per se,” said Esmay. “It’s about being a decent, ethical human being. You credit your sources period.”

Ethical issues loom large for a blogger like Kelley who aspires to be treated as a professional journalist. Many people have already tried to answer these questions about blogging ethics. Some sites suggest that bloggers follow a modified version of the Social of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. Rebecca Blood, in The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog, recommends six standards that she says can “bring transparency—one of the weblog’s distinguishing characteristics and greatest strengths—into every aspect of the practice of weblogging.” Her guidelines include disclosing conflicts of interest, noting questionable or biased sources, and linking to reference material. These suggestions can help bloggers identify themselves, show that they acknowledge competing points of view, and took the time to research their work.

Sean-Paul Kelley has likely ruined any chance he had at achieving true credibility. Other would-be blog reporters who find themselves with his opportunity need to strive for the same level of integrity and accuracy as the traditional journalists they so often denigrate. But even if you post only personal anecdotes and simple daily journals you need to be concerned with ethics. Pages deleted long ago live forever in the Google cache. You should feel accountable for everything that comes out of your keyboard.

Keep a simple rule of thumb in mind: when writing about anyone other than yourself, be they friends, family, politicians, musicians, or athletes, pay them the same amount of respect and fairness you expect in return. It’s a blogger’s twist on the Golden Rule: Blog about others as you would have them blog about you. This doesn’t preclude criticism, disagreement, or satire. But it does demand adherence to facts, diligent research, proper citation of sources, and old-fashioned fair play.

Ethical blogging is really about professionalism. If you take the time to check facts, credit sources, and correct mistakes, it shows that you care about your work and the reputation it engenders. This extra effort also places you on solid legal ground from which you can defend your work. Most bloggers have little interest in being treated as a serious journalist or scholar. Little harm can come from a few innocent mistakes or inaccuracies. But considering the ease with which anyone—think potential employers, litigious corporations, love interests—can find anything you have ever posted on the web, a few minutes to check your work is time well spent.

- By Matt Wood

Blogging 101 publishes every Sunday and provides blogging tips, advice and tutorials for blog newbies and veterans alike.

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