Bloggers make the big time: printer friendly version
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Bloggers make the big time
Adam Cohen The New York Times
TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2005Bloggers make the big time
Adam Cohen The New York Times
TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2005
NEW YORK Bloggers like to demonize the MSM (that's Mainstream Media), but it is increasingly hard to think of the largest news blogs as being outside the mainstream. Bloggers have been showing up at national political conventions, at the World Economic Forum at Davos and on the cover of Business Week. Establishment warhorses like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. are signing on to write for Arianna Huffington's blog collective. And Garrett Graff, of FishbowlDC, broke through the cyberceiling recently and acquired the ultimate inside-the-Beltway media credential: a White House press pass.
Bloggers are not only getting access; they have also been getting results. The Drudge Report, of course, is famous for pushing stories, often with a rightward spin, onto the national media agenda, but it is not alone. Daily Kos did a brilliant job last fall of pressuring Sinclair Broadcasting not to show a hatchet-job documentary about John Kerry. And Joshua Micah Marshall has been rattling Congress with his entertaining and influential listing of where individual members stand on Social Security privatization. Blogs helped to shape, in some cases in major ways, some of the biggest stories of the last year.
The thing about influence is that, as bloggers well know, it is only a matter of time before people start trying to hold you accountable. Bloggers are so used to thinking of themselves as outsiders, and watchdogs of the LSM (that's Lame Stream Media), that many have given little thought to what ethical rules should apply in their online world. Some insist that they do not need journalistic ethics because they are not journalists, but rather activists, or humorists or something else entirely. But more bloggers, and blog readers, are starting to ask whether at least the most prominent blogs with the highest traffic shouldn't hold themselves to the same high standards to which they hold other media.
Every mainstream news organization has its own sets of ethics rules, but all of them agree broadly on what constitutes ethical journalism. Information should be verified before it is printed, and people who are involved in a story should be given a chance to air their viewpoints, especially if they are under attack. Reporters should avoid conflicts of interest, even significant appearances of conflicts, and disclose any significant ones. Often, a conflict means being disqualified to cover a story or a subject. When errors are discovered or pointed out by internal or external sources, they must be corrected. And there should be a clear wall between editorial content and advertising.
Bloggers often invoke these journalistic standards in criticizing the MSM, and insist on harsh punishment when they are violated. The blogs that demanded Dan Rather's ouster accused him of old-school offenses: not sufficiently checking the facts about President Bush's National Guard service, refusing to admit and correct errors, and having undisclosed political views that shaded the journalism.
But Rather's misdeeds would most likely not have landed him in trouble in the world of bloggers, where few rules apply. Many bloggers make little effort to check their information, and think nothing of posting a personal attack without calling the target first - or calling the target at all. They rarely have procedures for running a correction. The wall between their editorial content and advertising is often nonexistent. (Wonkette, a witty and well-read Washington blog, posts a weekly shout-out inside its editorial text to its advertisers, including partisan ones like Democrats.org.) And bloggers rarely disclose whether they are receiving money from the people or causes they write about.
A few bloggers have begun calling for change. There have even been fledgling attempts to create ethical guidelines, like the ones found at Cyberjournalist.net. Defenders of the status quo argue that ethics rules are not necessary in the blogosphere because truth emerges through "collaboration," and that bias and conflicts of interest are rooted out by "transparency." But "collaboration" is a haphazard way of defending against dishonesty and slander, and blogs are actually not all that transparent. MSM journalists write under their own names. Someone would be likely to notice if a newspaper reporter covering a campaign was also on the campaign's staff. But it is hard to know who many bloggers are, and whether they are paid to take the positions they are espousing.
Richard Hofstadter noted in "The Age of Reform" that American reformers had been prone to an "enormous amount of self-accusation." Throughout history, reform movements have ostentatiously held themselves to higher standards than the institutions they attacked. The political reformers who took on Tammany Hall declared that they would not accept patronage jobs.
Many bloggers who criticize the MSM's ethics, however, are in the anomalous position of holding themselves to lower standards, or no standards at all. That may well change. Ana Marie Cox, who edits Wonkette, notes that blogs are still "a very young medium," and that "things have yet to be worked out." Before long, leading blogs could have ethics guidelines and prominently posted corrections policies.
Bloggers may need to institutionalize ethics policies to avoid charges of hypocrisy. But the real reason for an ethical upgrade is that it is the right way to do journalism, online or offline. As blogs grow in readers and influence, bloggers should realize that if they want to reform the American media, that is going to have to include reforming themselves.
(Adam Cohen is a member of the New York Times editorial board.)
