Bloggers Beware! Ethics in Blogging
Ellie
Bloggers are being called dangerous and irresponsible by some. They point at the left and right. The latest round of finger pointing focuses on the early poling results for the presidential election that turned out to be flawed. The bloggers didn't lie, there was a pole and the results were as reported, however the data was skewed somewhat by the time of day and people being interviewed by the exit polers.
It could be argued that the pole was designed to do just what occured, release information early in the day that Kerry was winning big to discourage Bush voters. I could have also had the opposite affect. Kerry voters assured of a win, might not have the same sense of urgency about their own individual vote. Thankfully, neither seems to be the case. The voter turn-out is touted to be at a record high.
Some news sources are blaming bloggers for running the story. Apparently because a few bloggers out there ran the poling results, and were viewed as "scooping" the story, news sources felt they had no choice but to report the results as well. They ran the results without checking out the facts. To blame the blog world for their irresponsibility seems a little disingenious. Reminds me of the old adage told to children for eons, "if John told you to jump off a bridge, would you?"
They feel the blogworld should have the same responsibility to the public as they supposedly do.
I feel torn about the matter. On one hand, I think we should be careful about what we tout as "truth". On the other hand, in the blog world for the most part, we don't have the resources and time that the professional news world has. We can't check out every story.
So what do we do? In my case, I cannot do personal investigative reporting. I don't have the time or resources. What I do try to do is quote existing news sources. I am espousing opinions and editorializing based upon data compiled by the existing news world.
I think we need to be careful. Some media types seem to be somewhat jealous of the blogger world. They could try to shut us down. How sad it would be if we no longer had the freedom to comment on and speak our mind about the worlds events.
Bloggers are being called dangerous and irresponsible by some. They point at the left and right. The latest round of finger pointing focuses on the early poling results for the presidential election that turned out to be flawed. The bloggers didn't lie, there was a pole and the results were as reported, however the data was skewed somewhat by the time of day and people being interviewed by the exit polers.
It could be argued that the pole was designed to do just what occured, release information early in the day that Kerry was winning big to discourage Bush voters. I could have also had the opposite affect. Kerry voters assured of a win, might not have the same sense of urgency about their own individual vote. Thankfully, neither seems to be the case. The voter turn-out is touted to be at a record high.
Some news sources are blaming bloggers for running the story. Apparently because a few bloggers out there ran the poling results, and were viewed as "scooping" the story, news sources felt they had no choice but to report the results as well. They ran the results without checking out the facts. To blame the blog world for their irresponsibility seems a little disingenious. Reminds me of the old adage told to children for eons, "if John told you to jump off a bridge, would you?"
They feel the blogworld should have the same responsibility to the public as they supposedly do.
I feel torn about the matter. On one hand, I think we should be careful about what we tout as "truth". On the other hand, in the blog world for the most part, we don't have the resources and time that the professional news world has. We can't check out every story.
So what do we do? In my case, I cannot do personal investigative reporting. I don't have the time or resources. What I do try to do is quote existing news sources. I am espousing opinions and editorializing based upon data compiled by the existing news world.
I think we need to be careful. Some media types seem to be somewhat jealous of the blogger world. They could try to shut us down. How sad it would be if we no longer had the freedom to comment on and speak our mind about the worlds events.
posted by Ellie at 11:01 AM
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