Asymmetrical Information

Mr. Lawn Tractor: Are you insane?

[Ed.-Timothy refers to a deleted post]

Great post! One thing that struck me: Cohen misrepresents the call for reform as coming from the blogosphere instead of the MSM. So much for those journalistic standards, huh?

Blogged here:

http://citizenz.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2005/5/8/662240.html

I like Jeff Jarvis' formulation: whenever traditional media types think "blogger," they should substitute "reader" or "viewer."

Ann Althouse here.

For some reason I can't put it in the post body.

Bloggers like to demonize the MSM (that's Mainstream Media),

No, what the bloggers do is check facts and ask begged questions, which is what any decent editor should do. When Mr. Cohen gets a draft back with comments like, "Source?" and "This statement isn't supportable," he must write back, "Stet, stop demonizing me!" That would be the non-hypocritical thing to do, right?

but it is increasingly hard to think of the largest news blogs as being outside the mainstream. . . . Arianna Huffington's blog collective . . .

I thought we were talking about the largest blogs.

And Garrett Graff, of FishbowlDC, broke through the cyberceiling recently and acquired the ultimate inside-the-Beltway media credential: a White House press pass.

You have the nerve to write sentence fragment after sentence fragment in a column attacking other people's editorial standards.

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.

Repeat after me: The Drudge Report is not a blog. Oh, and thank you for admitting that there is a "national media agenda." Lots of people have been waiting 30 to 40 years for that admission.

Daily Kos did a brilliant job last fall of pressuring Sinclair Broadcasting not to show a hatchet-job documentary about John Kerry.

Drudge "pushes stories onto the national media agenda," meaning it runs overlooked stories until they become popular enough that the MSM must start writing about them, and you imply that's bad, evil partisanship. When Kos pressures television stations into not running a documentary, however, that's "brilliant." What ever happened to independence of the media, free speech, silencing of dissent and all that good stuff? Oh right.

And Joshua Micah Marshall has been rattling Congress with his entertaining and influential listing of where individual members stand on Social Security privatization.

Hmm, is a pattern emerging here? If I didn't know better, I'd say this column is going to do nothing but name vague improprieties by unnamed, shadowy right-wing blogs, then trumpet all the great "successes" of left-wing blogs. Fortunately, I know better.

Blogs helped to shape, in some cases in major ways, some of the biggest stories of the last year - the presidential election, tsunami relief, Dan Rather.

How? Show, don't tell. [Stet, stop demonizing me! - Cohen]

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.

Those "people" are the readers, and they hold a blogger accountable from the day anyone starts reading a blog, through the medium of angry e-mails.

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.

You all know what's coming when a journalist starts talking about "ethical rules." Wait for it . . .

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.

First, name one major blogger who says he don't need no steenking ethics. Second, huh? HIGH standards? Yes, Jayson Blair and Dan Rather would still be in business if it weren't for those blessed high standards. Yes, it's SO damned hard to make sure people aren't just making shit up.

Every mainstream news organization has its own sets of ethics rules, but all of them agree broadly on what constitutes ethical journalism.

Here it is! We journalists have ethical rules, so we're a profession! Bullshit. You don't, and you're not. Your ethical rules are simply internal codes of conduct, like WalMart's or Exxon-Mobil's. They are NOT standard, regardless of what you claim, and they are NOT binding, since there is no independent body to enforce them. REAL professions, like law and medicine, have codified rules of ethics enforced by governmental or quasi-governmental agencies in the states. Lawyers and doctors make their rules, and they are subject to fines, censure, exclusion from the profession, and civil liability if they violate the rules. What, journalists aren't? That's fine, but you're not professionals.

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.

I don't think anyone cares about Rather's "insufficient fact-checking" or "undisclosed political views." Last time I checked, having political views isn't a crime, though you "professional" journalists claim you don't have them. I think we were upset that 60 Minutes aided and abetted an outright fraud and never admitted it.

Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, resigned this year after a blogmob attacked him for a reported statement at the World Economic Forum at Davos that the military had aimed at journalists in Iraq and killed 12 of them. Their complaint was even more basic than in Mr. Rather's case: they were upset that Mr. Jordan said something they believed to be untrue.

Larf. "They were upset that Mr. Jordan said something they believed to be untrue." Yeah, that's it, Adam. Eason hurt our feelings, so we cried. Fuck you. Eason Jordan said something COMPLETELY FALSE to win favor in an audience of foreigners, something that accused American soldiers of murder and put them at risk of reprisals and terrorist attacks. Jordan joined the Leftist EuroArabmob by, without a scintilla of evidence, accusing our men and women in uniform of systematic murder, and it's BLOGGERS who are at fault?

But Mr. Rather's and Mr. Jordan's misdeeds would most likely not have landed them in trouble in the world of bloggers, where few rules apply.

It's also possible that bloggers generally don't make defamatory and ghastly accusations about our troops to the Arab press while they're in a war zone, but hey, these are just small details.

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.

Names? We've seen that you're perfectly capable of naming actual blogs when you feel like it. Care to give us an example? No? Are you just making this up?

"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.)"

Wow, a political commentator (yeah, I know, but I'm in a generous mood) discloses her sources of funding when they may present the appearance of a conflict of interest? Shocking! Unseemly! Shall we put her in the stocks and brand her?

And bloggers rarely disclose whether they are receiving money from the people or causes they write about.

Yikes, Adam, stop writing these redundant sentence fragments [Stet! Stop demonizing me! - Adam]

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.

God knows the only thing stopping unethical conduct is the mere existence of ethical guidelines. I guess it's too much to expect that people just act ethically. Journalism isn't rocket science, or even law.

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."

Funny, I've never heard that. I have heard that the danger of getting 1,500 angry e-mails and 90 angry citations by other blogs is a good way to prevent misdeeds. That could cost someone who almost always has a day job hours and hours of time and weeks off his live because of the stress. What exactly happens to YOU if you fuck up, Adam?

But "collaboration" is a haphazard way of defending against dishonesty and slander, and blogs are actually not all that transparent.

Journalists' "ethical rules" are a haphazard way of defending against dishonesty and slander, and newspapers are actually not all that transparent. Two can play at this game!

MSM journalists write under their own names.

Right, nobody has any idea who Ana Marie Cox and John Hinderaker are. Come to think of it, weren't most of the top anonymous bloggers liberals?

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.

Well, Adam, most of them do disclose these things, at least the major bloggers. I guess you're of the opinion that blog readers are just slack-jawed yokels who believe everything they read without giving any thought to who wrote it and why. Well, of course, obviously you are, thus this column. Blog readers aren't nearly as sophisticated as, say, New York Times readers. Anyway, what's your solution to the problem of someone like Dana Milbank, who's better than any paid agent?

Richard Hofstadter noted in "The Age of Reform" that American reformers had been prone to an "enormous amount of self-accusation."

Yawn.

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.

They're not big on publishing standards, Adam. There's a difference. They hold themselves to high standards: don't make unsupported allegations; don't fabricate stories; don't make false statements, or make material misstatements, or omit statements necessary to make a statement not misleading; don't take money on the QT; don't hide possible conflicts of interest. They're all very big into not doing these things. So what if they're not keen on putting together a Committee of Ethics of the Society of Citizen Journalists that will report on an investigation of the possibility of the formation of a commission to direct a task force to consider putting together a team to dialogue on the costs and benefits of drafting a request for proposals for a non-binding code of ethics? Good bloggers like high ethical standards and following them , Adam. They don't give a rat's ass about spilling barrels of ink to define "ethical standards" that are inherently obvious. I guess if you have no ethics yourself, regardless of your nifty ethical code, all you can do is whine about how other people don't have the same great code you do.

Before long, leading blogs could have ethics guidelines and prominently posted corrections policies.

Yep, a paragraph of fine print on the bottom of the web page, next to the copyright date, will surely solve all current and future ethical problems.

Bloggers may need to institutionalize ethics policies to avoid charges of hypocrisy.

I thought the goal is to avoid unethical conduct? Silly me, it's hypocrisy we're really after, not any actual misdeeds.

But the real reason for an ethical upgrade is that it is the right way to do journalism, online or offline.

You don't say. Oh, and I just love what this "doing journalism" does to the place. That's so cute. "Report news" is just too prosaic, and might mistakenly make people believe that there's not a whole lot to it and that someone without a CJS degree can do it.

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.

Thus ends every New York Times editorial ever written. I guess you do have standards after all.

Hey, the memeorandum link needs tweaking! And I pile on too, here, and connect this silliniess to my memories of Milton Friedman's Free to Choose.

David Adesnik of Oxblog wrote the following today:

"A PRELIMINARY MEA CULPA: How ironic. I criticize a journalist for seeking mea culpas from supporters of the invasion of Iraq, only to find myself compelled to offer a mea culpa of my own as a result of my premature and poorly-informed criticism.

I intentionally suggested that Jeffrey Goldberg was a liberal journalist with an axe to grind. But according to a well-informed reader, Goldberg was an avid supporter of the invasion of Iraq and a darling of the neo-cons. For example, Goldberg wrote (and the New Yorker published) this in-depth account of Saddam's mass murder of the Iraqi Kurds. In that same article, Goldberg tantalized his readers with hearsay evidence to the effect that Saddam and Al Qaeda enjoyed (what we might now call) a collaborative relationship.

So, the only preliminary thing about my mea culpa is that it may not entail sufficient recognition of how extremely wrong I was. In the next few days, I intend to read more of Goldberg's writing in order to gain a little more perspective on my own folly.

In the meantime, you may savor the irony of how this inveterate critic of liberal media bias exposed his own bias in such an extraordinary manner."

I would be astonished if I saw something like this in the mainstream media.

I have my doubts, by the way, about how much AT's "1500 angry emails" can actually influence a blogger who doesn't care about facts. Instead, it's just that bloggers who engage in the kind of behavior Cohen worries about will be at best mocked, and at worst (for them), ignored. The best blogs correct errors quickly and make it obvious they care about truth. Those that don't, languish in obscurity. The worst blogs don't GET 1500 angry emails, because they don't have 1500 readers.

Journalistic ethics - That`s funny.

Bloggers have been going on about being ignored by the MSM for some time now, and the MSM has been trying to ignore and even denying the influence of blogs for the same amount of time.

Now the MSM pays attention the only way a bloated, government subsidized and politically biased entity knows how to respond to a threat to their monopoly.
They seek to regulate in order to control.
"Rules for thee but not for me" will be the outcome of this "Journalist Ethics" campaign, make no mistake.
It`s funny that since weblogs are taking a bigger proportion of readers on a daily basis, suddenly we need Rules of Ethics.
I haven`t seen any rules of ethics being followed by very many news orginizations, I haven`t really even heard of such things, that is until blogs came along and made people realize that The Emporor of the Fifth Estate actually had no clothes.
The MSN can`t control blog content outright, but they can start a campaign to regulate it and thereby, control it by proxy.
I think that if they are going to try and impose these mythical "Journalistic Ethics" on the public, then they should try them out first.
We wouldn`t need News Blogs if the MSM actually had these mysterious "Ethics" in the first place.

That's funny. "Bloggers, before making angry posts about Kofi Annan, please give him a call. I am sure that he will answer all your questions. The same goes for the heads of various countries, corporations, and religious groups." I mean, with all the fuss about Pope Benedict XVI recently, I cannot recall a single blogger mentioning that s/he had talked to the Pope about it. Maybe millions of bloggers should have called the Vatican press office, which certainly would have placed such calls at the top of its to-do list.

That comment was supposed to quote "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." at the start. I guess the comments system eats things between the greater-than and less-than symbols.

You need rules of ethics when you don't naturally have ethics - but having rules written down doesn't mean you follow them.

I'm sure there are bloggers out there that ignore truth and logic - but I don't read them. The ones I do read don't need a written rule about posting corrections. They just do it when needed. Unlike CBS news' belated and half-hearted apology for ignoring their own experts and running a story based on documents that anyone as experienced as Rather should have rejected without bothering with the experts. Come on Dan, you used to work with typewritten documents all the time - and they looked nothing like this.

Codified ethics also provide cover for writers to play right up to the edge of the rules. Basic honesty no longer counts, as long as you can show that you are not quite outside the formal rules. Sort of like how SEC rules allow deception through financial statements, but not deception without financial statements.

Per Norman's comment:

Readers may need to institutionalize ethics policies to avoid charges of hypocrisy. . . Readers should realize that if they want to reform the American media, that is going to have to include reforming themselves.

Ya know, for all the moaning and groaning coming from the MSM... (and I note NPR's Ombudsman in this) about bloggers and their lack of standards may I submit that the standards bloggers are now following are the ones established by the MSM in the cases of the Penetgon Papers, and Watergate; IE; they actually dig for the stories and follow them through all resistance to their logical conclusion.

Seesm to me that the call for standards is merely red-faced embarassment at having these upstarts doing the jobs the MSM has neither the courage, nor the political will, to do.

So how about let's publish a code of ethics - and then nail the mainstream media to the wall with it. Newspapers like the Washington Piss would be forced to include disclaimers on all their articles.

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