#SMCQ5 Bloggers: Facts & fallacies
April 11, 2009 by Deborah Crooks
Blogs are full of opinion, insight, fact and fiction… and bloggers can tend to fall in one of a handful of camps: watchdogs, troublemakers AND authorities! This all, of course, renders the blogosphere such fun and eye-opening reading. However, the SMC Editorial Board wonders, is there an equivalent of ‘journalistic integrity’ in social media? We’d like to hear from YOU.
Our Social Media Question of the Week:
Are bloggers responsible for getting the facts right?
Please tag your comments, tweets and posts #SMCQ5 and look for the conversation results on Thursday.
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Well, I think you answered your own question. Not all bloggers are journalists, nor try to be. Therefore, perhaps the question should be something like “Should citizen journalists (on their own or others’ blogs) have a standard identification that sets them out from the crowd, indicating that they _are_ intending to be journalists?”
Then, we could ask the question about bloggers (specifically these ones) getting the facts right. And to answer that question, I would say “Of course.” If we hold journalists to that standard, then we should hold independent journalist (bloggers) to the same standard.
So, perhaps we need a badge of some sort indicating that you (the journalistic blogger) could be held to that standard?
Let me clarify that I don’t condone dishonesty. But, I don’t think we ought to require the rigor of fact checking either. It’s generally not our day jobs. Whereas journalists get paid to get it right. I don’t think there is an expectation from the public by the public that blogs would be that credible of a source just because you publish something publicly.
The question is similar to asking if people who publish propaganda for one political side should check their facts before publishing. Of course in an ideal world that would be the case – and if it did happen that way, we’d have a lot less to argue about. But, that’s not always easy or necessary. Complicit and intentional dishonesty is of course not something we want. But just because someone has the ability to publish something doesn’t mean we ought to force them to go through what a journalist goes through.
I think the question steps outside the bounds of realism. I mean really, what is the next step if you answer “yes”? Form a “safety patrol” or witch hunt for people who didn’t spend all day fact checking their story? It’s unrealistic and unnecessary. Let those who claim to be journalists do the fact checking and get the credit.
To those who we give credit (journalists), let them take the responsibility too (fact checking). Otherwise, it really doesn’t matter that much.
#SMCQ5 – Good Lord, what difference does it make if you are a blogger or a journalist? If you are writing for an audience, why would you want to transmit bad information? Many bloggers who are not journalists per se have large audiences and people who listen to them. If you are writing for publication, you have an obligation to make your best efforts to check your facts. In many cases, that just means looking something up in Google News, on Wikipedia, or somewhere else one tab away from where you are writing anyway.
It makes a big difference whether you’re a journalist or non-journalist blogger. I agree that a quick check should be made, that’s just being a rational human being. But I don’t hold non-journalist bloggers – those who don’t pro-actively claim to be holding the journalistic standard – to the same standard as journalists. Why should I? They never claimed to be journalists, and so I don’t give them the same credit as I do most journalists.
If you take the responsibility you’ll get the authority. If you don’t take the responsibility, you won’t become an authority.
Pretty simple.
Integrity is a facet of the individual, not the medium. Journalistic Integrity is a meaningless expression. An author with right leanings and an author with left leanings can write an article based on the exact same set of facts and slant the facts to suit their agenda.
Should there be some sort of accountability for bloggers? Should there be accountability for individuals who tweet? The “masses” in America are easily lead into believing and embracing collective cultural ideas that are not generally accepted in the majority of the world. It is the reader who should verify what they read through other sources, if they are to act upon something they read.
In the last five decades, the US government has largely directed the slant on US Media and the US masses have followed, for the most part, blindly.
The internet presents the opportunity for people to become more globally informed but it has a long way to go. (how many blogs do you read that are based in a country other than your own) .
Someday, quite some distance in the future, global media will be the only media, with posts from everywhere translated into every language.
Integrity of any publisher is only as good as the means by which they educate themselves on the subjects they write about, which is typically limited to ones sphere of cultural influence.
The question posed here is “too simple”.
[...] -I was very humbled to be excepted as on of the first members of the Social Media Club Editorial Board. Each week the board is given a question to examine, dissect and respond to. This weekly event is all recorded on a podcast and lead by Chris Heuer. Learn more about the Social Media Club Question of The Week and the podcast/blog here. [...]
[...] write this blog post as a reaction to the Social Media Club Question of the Week in which they ask a simple question that requires something more than a blog post: Are bloggers [...]
As someone who talks to 50+ reporters every years and has been blogging for 6 years, I can say that:
Journalists are often more thorough, they pick up the phone to get quotes and have fact-checkers and editors.
Journalists (for the most part) write because they have to, not because they want to be popular.
Bloggers originate little content, mostly pontificating on what journalists and other bloggers have said previously.
Bloggers are quicker to post without thinking things through.
Journalists don’t always make good bloggers, and vice-versa.
Many blogs are just link farms filled with ads and auto-generated content, less so with newspapers and periodicals.
People say they respect bloggers, but not enough to cancel their newspapers subscriptions and start paying bloggers.
[...] When I said I was going to write a post on blogging and journalistic integrity for the current Social Media Club question of the week, Scott laughed and said, “That should be an easy one.” And I thought it would. After all, I [...]
[...] the nature of influence and the oft-malleable definition of ‘integrity.’ Do check the original post for a lively comment thread. Below is a summary of some of our favorite responses throughout the [...]