This exchange between me and Zachary Roth of the Columbia Journalism Review, has spawned some great discussion in the
thread below.
Here's my response to Roth, and will be my final say in this little debate. The question of blog ethics, on the other hand, will likely garner increased scrutiny as the medium comes of age.
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Zachary,
You write: " Sooner or later, you're going to have to choose between the rewards of being taken seriously, and the rewards of behaving like a two-year-old who has just discovered he can break things. You don't get both."
I'm curious as to who decides what I can or can't do. I'm curious as to who decides my choices? Because quite frankly, those aren't choices I really have to face. Whether I am taken seriously or not is outside my hands. That's not a choice I make for myself. It's a choice my readers and the political establishment will make for me. Either they approve of how I run the Daily Kos community, or they do not.
But I will say that so far, Daily Kos is having an impact in the political and media sphere precisely because of the way I run the site. Am I perfect? No. I don't pretend to be. But on the whole I have had a great deal of success because people appreciate what Daily Kos offers, not because I bind myself to a set of rules that have been flaunted by everyone from Fox News to the NY Times.
Your obvious obsession with being "taken seriously" is rather perplexing to me. I've never asked to be taken seriously by you, and I'm quite confident it doesn't matter whether you do or don't. In fact, I've never once asked to be taken seriously by anyone. I am what I am. My agenda is out in the open (to help elect Democrats). People are free to embrace or reject me as they see fit. And the beauty of the blogosphere is that there's something for everyone. I don't have and don't want a monopoly on the medium.
The blogosphere goes beyond regurgitation of information and pontificating, toward activating and engaging people. The political bloggers that can best spur political participation will be those most taken seriously. If my site can help raise some money to win a House race in Kentucky, then people will take notice. You can "tsk, tsk" all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that we aren't in this to reap accolades from the traditional media establishment. We're in it to make a real difference.
That may sound hopelessly naive, but that's one main difference between bloggers -- whose writing stems from their own passions -- and traditional media journalists who write to make a living, or to break into the DC cocktail party circuit, or to score a nickname from the current president. We're activists. Not reporters. Not talking heads. Not journalists. But activists. The difference is stark. Thus, we chuckle when people like you try to impose your own (oft violated) rules upon our endeavors.
While there are plenty of other differences, here's one more. You write: "If you're happy with a situation where your community of readers and other bloggers knows to take whatever you write with a giant grain of salt, then so be it."
The blogosphere is a new phenomenon, and we're providing a whole new way for people to consume information. If they take what I and others write with a giant grain of salt, then I will have done my job. Unlike you, apparently, I actually welcome educated readers who think for themselves and refuse to take everything I write literally and without question. That's why bloggers use hyperlinks to supporting material, so our readers can keep us honest and arrive at their own conclusions. It's manna for the free-thinker.
Slavish surrender to the mainstream media has facilitated just about every problem we currently face. An informed and skeptical citizenry would do wonders to reverse the damage wrought by a media that pays the barest attention to so-called journalistic "ethics".
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MattS has more in this diary entry, including a revealing email from CJR's Steve Lovelady (cool name). The punchline of that email:
We're working on putting together a sort of Comments feature -- but it won't be open to every lunatic on the planet who thinks he has a bright idea. When you do that, you just contribute to the static.
Why the palpable hostility? Most message board communities have community standards and ban people who break them, but Lovelady is already frothing at the mouth about those darn "lunatics".
Here's a tip for Lovelady -- let the community help define your comment board's standards. They'll clearly be a better judge of it than you will. Let it grow organically with as little management as possible, and only get involved when the situation requires it.