Blog: strengths and weaknesses.

I came across this article by Rebecca Blood on "blog ethics". It 's from 2002 but it's new to me so I thought I'd share it with you. I sort of had a sense of some of the concepts she listed in the article by reading how other people wrote their blog posts. Yet, seeing it outlined in this manner is a good reminder that even though there are no official rules for blogging, there are still common sense guidelines so that no one get cheated or so that you, the blogger, don't come out as a cheat, a liar, an idiot or all of the above. If you ever felt that I strayed from these guidelines here, please let me know and I will rectify immediately (or tell you that indeed I am a lying, cheating idiot). Here is her take on blogging:

"The weblog's greatest strength — its uncensored, unmediated, uncontrolled voice — is also its greatest weakness. News outlets may be ultimately beholden to advertising interests, and reporters may have a strong incentive for remaining on good terms with their sources in order to remain in the loop; but because they are businesses with salaries to pay, advertisers to please, and audiences to attract and hold, professional news organizations have a vested interest in upholding certain standards so that readers keep subscribing and advertisers keep buying. Weblogs, with only minor costs and little hope of significant financial gain, have no such incentives.
The very things that may compromise professional news outlets are at the same time incentives for some level of journalistic standards. And the very things that make weblogs so valuable as alternative news sources — the lack of gatekeepers and the freedom from all consequences — may compromise their integrity and thus their value. There is every indication that weblogs will gain even greater influence as their numbers grow and awareness of the form becomes more widespread. It is not true, as some people assert, that the network will route around misinformation, or that the truth is always filtered to widespread awareness. Rumors spread because they are fun to pass along. Corrections rarely gain much traction either in the real world or online; they just aren't as much fun..."

Oh, and because I am "the master of my own domain" (your free Seinfeld reference of the day), I demand that each post finishes with less words and more music :). Today, Oasis live "cold and frosty morning..." (I dare you to find a male in his 30's who did not wish he was one of the Gallagher brothers once)