All we know is what we read in the newspapers

The New York Times' Adam Cohen wants us bloggers to professionalize ourselves.

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. 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. 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.

Every mainstream news organization has its own sets of ethics rules, but all of them agree broadly on what constitutes ethical journalism. Information should be verified before it is printed, and people who are involved in a story should be given a chance to air their viewpoints, especially if they are under attack. Reporters should avoid conflicts of interest, even significant appearances of conflicts, and disclose any significant ones. Often, a conflict means being disqualified to cover a story or a subject. When errors are discovered or pointed out by internal or external sources, they must be corrected. And there should be a clear wall between editorial content and advertising.

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. 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.

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

I'm chastened so I'm mending my ways.  First, I confess.  In yesterday's post, that conversation between Jesus and his mother?  Never happened.  I made it up.

Susie Madrak and a lot of other people have dealt with the hilarity of someone who works for the paper that gave us Whitewater, Wen Ho Lee, Jayson Blair, and Judy Miller---not to mention David Brooks, who doesn't read his own paper, John Tierney, who doesn't understand how the government comes up with a budget, and the new Style section---lecturing us on the art of fact checking.

Attaturk, filling in for Atrios, wonders just which bloggers are asking the questions Cohen says we're asking.

(May 20 update for those of you not coming to this post via the Daily Howler: Bob Somerby points out that I left a most damnable item of my list of the Times' sins of omission and commission---their War on Al Gore.)

And you probably noticed that in Cohen's last sentence above he is making an implicit reference to the lie that was going around for a while that Kos, a political consultant, didn't disclose to his readers, who all know he's a political consultant, the fact that he'd been hired to do some political consulting.  (See Steve Gilliard.)   In other words, Cohen is in breach of the ethics he is pushing bloggers to adopt.

Cohen's lack of self-awareness aside, here is another example of the old media applying old media thinking to the web.

Old media types look at the mess in Washington.  They see Tom DeLay and Karl Rove at work.  They watch Bill Frist pandering.  They examine the list of right wing crazies Bush wants to put on the bench.   They make the connection between Dick Cheney and Haliburton.   And then they blame...

The Democrats.

(Most of my links today are coming from Brad DeLong.  Why are you reading me?  You should just go straight over to Brad's page.)

Old media types read---or, more likely, read about---Matt Drudge, Little Green Footballs, Michelle Malkin, Jonah Goldberg, and the FreeRepublic, and they recoil in horror.

Good Lord!  These people are racist.  They are crazy.  They are blinded by ideology to the point where they can't even enjoy a popcorn movie like Star Wars!  They are paranoid.  They make shit up!

Something needs to be done!

I know.  We need to lecture Josh Marshall, Atrios, Kos, Juan Cole and all the other liberal and moderate bloggers on their lack of professionalism.

Seriously.  It is stunning.  Cohen types his 700 or so words without ever hitting a combination of keys spelling out words like Powerline, the Corner, FreeRepublic, Instapundit, Simon, or Hindrocket.  How can he not have typed Hindrocket?  It's so much fun to type Hindrocket.  It's more giggles than a pot brownie.

Cohen's assumption is that what bloggers want to be is what he thinks of as "real journalists."  He treats the fact that one of the things that inspires bloggers is that they despise real journalists like him as just the envious whining of nerds who haven't been invited to become part of the popular crowd and apparently thinks that once our skin clears up, we grow a couple of inches, we trade in our glasses for contacts, and learn how to dress we'll be invited to the prom and then we'll understand the importance of being homecoming queen.

It's not the case that bloggers reject the standards and practices of "real journalists."  Or even that we don't see "real journalists" as being real journalists, although that is a big part of what drives a lot of blogs.  Not from choice or perversity or envy or spite, necessarily.  Brad DeLong would probably enjoy being able to blog about economic and academic issues in and of themselves without having to spend so much time correcting the bad reporting of "real journalists" who either can't be bothered to learn economics, don't like the conclusions that real economists keep coming to, or who are just plain innumerate.

Bloggers aren't alternative journalists.  We aren't in the business of journalism at all.

(I'm using journalism here as a synonym for reporting and analyzing the news while in the employ of a journal or some electronically delivered version of a journal.  In some other post I'm going to use journalism to mean journalism.  I'll also deal with the most depressing thing about Cohen's column---the fact that he clearly doesn't read Lance Mannion.)

Let's forget for now that Cohen has never really paid any attention to blogs or he'd know that they are in fact self-correcting.  Bloggers rely on each other to check each other's facts and punch holes in each other's arguments.  And not just on each other but on their readers.  That's why we have comment sections.

And let's put aside for now the fact that many bloggers are people to whom "real journalists" like Cohen ought to be going to have their own facts checked.  Many bloggers are experts in fields that "real journalists" cover but don't make enough of an effort to understand.  If you're reporting on economic issues and you don't read Brad DeLong's blog you're not doing your job.  And no "real journalists" know as much about the Middle East as Juan Cole.  And very few "real journalists" are even aware that there's a very real threat to national security from homegrown terrorists and a rising white supremicist movement, so they can't begin to make use of all that David Neiwert has to teach them.

And I don't have the time to even begin to discuss all the other issues "real journalists" don't bother themselves with but which bloggers take on all the time (just for a for instance, see Trish Wilson on divorce and custody issues).

Some bloggers are journalists, like Josh Marshall and Matt Yglesias, and they do hold themselves to the standards Cohen wants the rest of us to adopt---when they are on the job as journalists, which they sometimes but not always are on their blogs.

When they aren't being journalists they are doing what the rest of us are doing---being good citizens!

The endless cross-referencing, the daily "what he said in spades!", the inextricable I call bullshit, the griping, the screaming, the banging of virtual heads against virtual walls, the second-guessing, the Monday morning quarterbacking, the intrinsic "If only they'd listen to me the world would be a better place" sermonizing, the bragging, the backtracking, the sarcasm, bad jokes, lame parodies, ironies, teasing, and verbal horseplay, the changing of minds and then the changing of them back, the constant, incessant, at times unendurable arguing---all this is obviously not journalism.  It is conversation.

Bloggers are engaging in the kind of debate that citizens of a democracy have always engaged in.  The difference is that it's happening on the web and not in corner bars and on commuter trains and while standing in line at the supermarket checkout or sitting in the barber's chair or talking on the phone to your brother.

I should say that it is happening in addition to happening in all those other places.

This is what citizens do.  They read the papers, they watch TV, they listen to their political leaders, they pay attention to things happening in the world around them, and then they discuss it with each other on their way to making up their minds about what to think about it all and what to do about it.

Some bloggers, like Jeff Jarvis and Terry Teachout, think that blogs will someday replace the traditional media.  Jarvis and Teachout are more conservative than not, which is interesting, if you think of conservatives as being by definition temperamentally resistant to change.  But in this case it is not surprising, as it is conservatives more than liberals who hope the traditional media would disappear for the obvious reason that conservatives see traditional media as being synonymous with Liberal Media.   I think that while Jeff and Terry both make excellent arguments about how blogs can replace the old media or at least usurp the old media's place as the people's main source of news and entertainment, there might be more conservative wishful thinking in their theories than they'd like to admit.

I'll be far from the first to point out that without the traditional media to feed off of, blogging would pretty much not exist.

Most bloggers, at least those on the left, do not see what they're doing as a replacement for the old media.  They see what they're doing as something additional.

But we're not adding something new.  We're just expanding something very old.

We are taking the debate beyond the barber shops and bars and union halls.  We are making it possible for people in California to carry on the debates they've always had with their friends and neighbors with people in Alabama, Newfoundland, and Minsk.

You'd think that old media types like Cohen would understand this and appreciate it.  This is what we were all taught in civics class is the job of a free press---to inform the people so that they can debate issues and make intelligent choices about how to govern themselves.

The fact that the old media types see blogs as a threat to what they do rather than as a natural and desirable follow up is a sign of how the old media has become corrupted by power.

Some time over the last century the old media stopped seeing themselves as being the voice and tool of the people and began seeing themselves as an organ of government.

Old media types do not see themselves as serving their readers.  They see themselves as being in on important meetings with the powers that be.

They see themselves as players.

This is why they have been so easily cowed by the Bush Leaguers.  They are scared of losing access.  They won't be invited to any more meetings.  They won't be on the team.

If they saw their jobs as being adversarial, which is to say, if they saw their jobs as being to inform their readers of what was going on inside the halls of power so that their readers could decide how to exercise their power to change things, then they wouldn't care that Karl Rove will stop talking to them if they get out of line.

Quick lesson in how to do journalism:  Watch All the President's Men.  (It's too much to ask real journalists to read books.)  Woodward and Bernstein get nothing out of the big cheeses in the White House.  They uncover the whole scandal by talking to secretaries and low level functionaries.  You don't need Karl Rove, folks.  He needs you.

Anyway.  The fact is that "real journalists" like Cohen have stopped seeing themselves as helping citizens take part in the running of their own government.  They see themselves as being part of a decision-making process that actually excludes citizens.

It is not the business of readers---that is citizens---to question what is in the papers and on TV.  It is their place to accept what the old media types tell them.

The old media types want to be the last word.

Blogging bothers them because its existence and growing popularity proves that the old media don't have the last word.

They never had it.

There is no last word.  The debate is forever.  As long as we live in a democracy, there will be no last word, nobody gets the final say.

There will always be another election.

(A nice, polite welcome followed by rude, shameless begging :  Welcome to all of you sent over here from the Daily Howler and Eschaton.  I'm really glad you're here and I hope you'll come back, time and time again.  This page has gotten a lot of kind but unexpected attention from some big blogs lately.  Besides Atrios and Bob Sombery, in the last week Buzz Flash, AlterNet, Wolcott, and a number of other fine blogs have linked to us here at Lance Mannion Feed and Grain.   I'm thrilled, but I'm not really set up for it yet.  It's doing a number on my bandwidth and disk allottment and I need to upgrade in a hurry.   I'm hoping though some of you will be kind enough to hit my Amazon or PayPal buttons in the tip jar up there at the top of the right hand column on your way out or click here.  Thanks very much.)

Comments

[Linkmeister]

Well and truly said. As others have said, bloggers rely on old media for our fodder; most of us grab an (old-media-generated) article on a topic which interests us and expand, rant, chase down further data and take it from there. Cohen doesn't seem to grasp this.

You're absolutely right that they want to be players, which is emphatically not what the role of the press should be. "Afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted" is the ideal the press should follow. It's forgotten that.

[coturnix]

Correct. We are not, and do not aspire to become journalists.

[hieronymus braintree]

Mostly nicely said.

[jbl]

Re: Cohen

Nicely written sir. However without real journalists, how will we ever find out what's on the Presidents i-Pod?

[Marley]

May I add that in many cases people dare not bring up anything possibly controversial with each other anymore. With the middle gone, conversations with people whose views you don't know can lead to problems that will make life more difficult at home or at work. So who's going to risk making a problem? You may find Rich at work tolerable, but after discussing current events you'll probably either hate his guts or think he's a great guy. I don't know about other people, but I can't afford feeling antagonistic toward many more people. I'm already past my quota.

[Jon Koppenhoefer]

Well said, and to gild the lily, I shall add the following.

Since 1992, Americans have been surveyed by the Pew Center to determine the sources of information they rely upon and what they know as a result.

Almost without change, from 1992 through 2004, Americans have relied on television, then newspapers, then radio and the Internet as their main source of information about presidential campaigns.

The Pew Center also asked respondents two questions about the candidates in these campaigns. The proportion of respondents who answered one or both questions accurately was inversely related to the source of information they relied upon: television, newspaper, radio, Internet.

That is to say, those who named the Internet were most likely to answer the questions accurately, followed in turn by those who named television, newspapers, and then radio.

The really troubling finding, however, was that at most, 38% of the respondentss got one or both questions right.

More than 6 out of 10 Americans could not answer either question correctly, out of 1500+ who were surveyed by the Pew Center, no matter what their main source(s) of information might have been.

I hear a lot of wild claims about the US being the light of democracy, the font of freedom, blah blah blah, yet well over half of our 'free' citizens remain as ignorant (if not more so) as people on the other side of the world.

And we all have a good idea how low voter turnout remains.

Sometimes I think we're all talking to ourselves in a darkened room.