Trust Me. It's All True

The debate over ethics in the new media has been raging for awhile and doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

As the journalistic landscape continues to change from a clearly defined of group of professional journalist to the citizen journalist, how do we define what is ethical and what is not?

Stephen J.A. Ward  in writing for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Journalism School poses the central question of how do old media’s ethics apply to a media that is always on, running a 24/7 news cycle?

For Mr. Ward the question involves the idea of combining the gate-keeping ability of the old media, the fact-checking, source reliability, and all of the other aspects that went into a story before it was printed and the immediacy required to stay relevant in the digital age.

Mr. Ward believes that we must provide a new set of mixed media ethics, guidelines that apply to both professional and citizen journalists.

So how do we enforce such a code of ethics, when anyone with an internet connection and a screen name can call him or herself a journalist?

The blog or blogger can always have his or site shut down by the site administrator. At the speed that information travels on the internet this more often than not would a classic case of too little too late.

While I agree with a blogger who only identifies himself as “Walter” on his ethics blog that blogging and digital media ethics are “an ideal mode of the behavior we must strive to achieve.” I disagree with him that social stigma has no role in helping to enforce ethical behavior in the blogosphere.

“For me the notion of compelled ethics, even if compelled by the threat of social stigma doesn’t work.”

If there is no threat of a disagreeable outcome for a blogger, professional or citizen, what is to stop someone from posting false, misleading, and potentially life altering information for their own gains?

I believe that most people are good but, I am not naïve enough to believe that everyone is.

If there is no threat of a social stigma,  the reduction of credibility that leads to the reduction in traffic that leads to that loss of income, what is the solution? Is it government monitoring and ultimately censorship?

We are seeing that argument right now with the net-neutrality debate and it is not going well. Government control over the internet threatens the very nature of what makes the internet so intriguing and so disturbing.

It seems the only solution at this point is Caveat Emptor, Let the Buyer Beware.

Whether it is going online to get travel advice:

Or reading the writings of Sean-Paul Kelley who in 2003 admitted plagiarizing his blogs posts on Iraq. Don’t rely on blog posts that have no clear means of citing their sources for your news, opinion maybe, news, and facts never.

In 2010 the FTC did provide a little relief to the reader. In that year the FTC started  requiring that all paid posts or links come with a disclosure, whether  within the post or on a disclosure page.

It probably won’t relieve us of all the websites that promote get rich schemes and too good to true medical breakthroughs but, it’s a start. A start in what promises a long and ongoing question of ethics and the blogosphere.

Until next time remember: 1) Cite your sources, 2) Ask Permission and always 3) Play Nice!