Blogging Ethics - What are they?
At a groundbreaking session right now. Very proud to announce that we're developing a set of working blogging guidelines here at ONA that we're hoping newsrooms will take and adapt for their own use. Anthony Moor (dallasnews.com) is moderating this mega-group discussion, and Tom Regan (NPR blogger) is graciously recording notes on a wiki. (Wiki is password-protected, ONA folks only.)
Right now, we're talking about what other newsrooms do:
Says Tribune:
"A personal Web site of almost any nature could be seen as competition to Tribune's various online offerings, so proposals must be examined closely before permission is granted."
Question One: Should reporters be allowed to blog on their own time?
Bill Mitchell from Poynter says: don't frame as an either/ or question. Instead, under what terms? We just voted: there should not be a blanket prohibition.
Bruce Kuhn from KQED: by being more transparent about our personal issues, wouldn't journalists become more credible, especially during a time that so many folks are questioning journalism?
Mitchell: What about a bio page? Where it disclosed sexual orientation, politicial orientation if the reporter agreed? Like a professional Facebook for jurnos?
What I think: I think Bill has a great idea...it would engender better trust among our readership and might draw the folks back to "mainstream media" who left because they thought newspaper content was corporate owned and controlled...
Moor: What about other publishing options? What about Flickr, Facebook, Twitter? Just restrict the discussion to blogging?
Mike Webb cbsnews.com (no relation to me): are we slanting readers' view of our work just by identifying what topics we're interested in?
...more to come...
