Truth in blogging
Published by Yazad Jal May 30th, 2005 in Web WorldI’ve been debating “truth in blogging” with Dilip D’Souza (largely on email) after his piece on Indicubed, and going back to an older post of his where he said:
Blogs allow you to bypass editors and publish, putting the power of publishing directly in the hands of the writer. That’s often a great boon. Yet consider: a good editor would have stopped conjecture where it should have been stopped. Before being published.
We may decide to put up our respective thoughts on the matter on our blogs, but in the meanwhile, this statement by Richard Posner caught my eye.
Inaccuracies in blogs are less pernicious than inaccuracies in the mainstream media even apart from the superior opportunity for prompt correction of bloggers’ errors. The reason is that bloggers are known not to employ fact checkers or editors; there is no pretense that they have the resources to eliminate all errors in their postings. The mainstream media, in contrast, represent to their public that they endeavor assiduously to prevent errors from finding their way into articles and broadcasts. They ask the public to repose trust in them. Bloggers do not. That is why serious errors by the mainstream media are played as scandals; they are not merely mistakes–they are breaches of trust.
Link Courtesy: Ashish’s Niti.
One has to differentiate between two types of blogs. The first type is more experential ( like I did this today and found this etc) and other is more opinionated and gives views on topics of interest ( I think consumerism is good bcoz etc) The first types are mostly harmless. The second type is more of concern to the mainstream media.
I don’t see a problem with inaccurate or misinformed blogging. It should be largely self-regulating and over time, people will gravitate towards blogs that they enjoy reading the most and/or the ones that offer the most quality.
Much the same is true of mainstream media too - there are tabloids, there is the NY Times and there is the TOI. Takes all kinds to make up the writing world, and I’m sure we can trust the reader to settle on something he likes.
See my post for a response to Derek Rose to feels that bloggers should be held to same standards are journalists.
I have no issues with bloggers being held to the same standards as journalists. My contention is that they already are. By readers.
Each reader sets his standards for himself, and reads only those bloggers/newspapers who meet those standards. This is entirely as it should be. It is being disrespectful to readers to suggest that they are not equipped to make their own choices, or that they are not discerning enough to punish unethical behaviour.
Dilip’s statement:
“Yet consider: a good editor would have stopped conjecture where it should have been stopped. Before being published.”
Is completely anti-freedom. It violates basic rights of an Individual. There is something like the Freedom Of Expression
Why should anyone ‘edit’ my blog before it is published. If it is crap, I wont get readers. If I get a huge number of readers, my blog is demonstrably “not crap”
No Blogger, actually “competes” with mainstream journalists. A lot many people blog as a hobby. By that, I mean even the non-personal ’socio-econonomic-political commentry’ type of blogs. A Blog isn’t the primary source of “income” for a blogger. Yes there is Adsense and there are several ad-programs, but no one makes a fortune out of them. It is rather for taking care of the costs of maintaining the Blogs.
Blogging and Mainstream Media are on two totally different paths. Blogging is all about freedom and expressing your views without being scared of an Editor. Journalism is mass-producing content which is more or less ‘acceptable to all’ - i.e. Any “mainstream” newspaper can’t engage in Congress Bashing or Communist Bashing or BJP Bashing as far as the news is concerned. The Editorials also have to be ’subdued to a certain extent’ for obvious reasons.
A vast majority of people buy newspapers for the “news”. Editorials are secondary. But a vast number of people read blogs for opinions, and not news. For news they’ve got other specific places to go.
So tell me where is the “competition” and for what irrational reason is the MSM worried?