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Your Ethic, My Ethic, Our Ethic

One thing is clear to me after reading the different viewpoints about Cleveland's blog scandal: Journalists and bloggers will never be able to work together in peace until people in both worlds find some common ethical ground.

Right now, the two groups are talking past each other with an air of superiority. Old-timers like those at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland think their longstanding ethic against donations to political candidates (though obviously not set in stone) is the only way; political bloggers and their allies in new media insist just as strongly that the blog ethic of disclosure is both more enlightened and enlightening to readers.

The latest post by Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine ends with a particularly telling statement: "[T]his should be about one tribe trying to understand -- and learn from -- the ethics of the other. The Plain Dealer didn’t try. That is its loss."

Did you catch that -- "one tribe trying to understand ... the ethics of the other"? It's ironic that Jarvis criticizes the newspaper for not listening when he doesn't seem to be interested in listening himself. He is so convinced that the blog ethic is superior that he won't even entertain the possibility that the ethic of the trade he has plied for decades has some merit -- or that perhaps a converged ethic is worth pursuing in a converging media world.

I've offered my thoughts in comments here and at other blogs over the past two days. What we need now is a cease-fire and a commitment from both sides to truly hear what the other has to say.

And forget what happened in Cleveland. Just have a forthright discussion about what the next newspaper should do when trying to create the kind of venue The Plain Dealer's editors too quickly abandoned. Everyone needs to stop talking about your ethic and my ethic, and come to an agreement on our ethic.

When Jarvis hosted his excellent Networked Journalism Summit in New York last month, he warned me and other participants that he would not tolerate blogger attacks on journalists and vice versa. He even thought about bringing a gong to the event to call out violators.

I'd say it's about time to gong to a close this battle in what is beginning to look like the information age equivalent of the 100 years war between bloggers and journalists. Maybe it's time for another summit -- or one of those blogger ethics panels that too many bloggers think are just a punch line.

Posted by Danny | 04:12 PM

Comments

Danny! I never figured you for the kumbaya type - am I right? I guess I need to read this blog more often (it's in my RSS reader but, I umm, don't always get to it...)

I remember the thing about the gong - that was about month before Wide Open went live.

Finding common ethical ground is a valuable goal but I read what Jay and Jeff have written as saying that there's more than one way to define what is ethical, and that how you define the behaviors you might pursue as ethical or not depends on your goals.

At Wide Open, the goals included being partisan, based on our past partisan writing.

The newsroom staff will never have the goal of being partisan, and there's the rub.

We might share a desire to be honest with the reader - but being an honest partisan and being an honest newsroom staffperson aren't achieved in the same way - they can't be.

Disclosure is a good thing - transparency is a good thing. I can't add to what you've said anymore - particularly about how the PD needed to broach the subject of ethics before ever sending us a contract. In the case of Wide Open, we did talk about disclosure and transparency, it came up numerous times in different contexts. I'm still going to say that as the payor, as the platform host (which really was cleveland.com), the PD had the burden to get us on the same page - or at least say that we have to iron it out before going live.

But, moving forward as a blogger, I will not invest my time in a project again without asking, How are you handling disclosure and transparency?

Maybe the good professor Rosen and/or others could come up with some kind of a "freelance blogger template" for entering into ventures like Wide Open. It could become the go-to guide. I should check Media Blogger Assn. to see if they have anything like that too. Bob Cox has probably faced some of these issues, yes?

Jill | 11.12.07 07:27 PM

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