Archive for the ‘blogging vs journalism’ Category

Blogger vs. Mainstream Media: Who’s Exploiting Whom?

May 19th, 2009 by AV Flox in blogging, blogging vs journalism, integrity

The internet was on fire on Sunday after Maureen Dowd, New York Times op-ed columnist, admitted she had plagiarized the work of Talking Points Memo blogger, Josh Marshall. The Huffington Post published an e-mail where Dowd admitted her error:

josh is right. I didn’t read his blog last week, and didn’t have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now.

i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent — and I assumed spontaneous — way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column. but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me.

we’re fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow.

Unless this was an IM discussion, it’s questionable how the 43-word paragraph made it nearly verbatim into Dowd’s column, but enough crucifying of Maureen Dowd has occurred across the blogosphere, so I’m going to pass on that aspect of the discussion. What I see here is not just a case of plagiarism, but a perfectly illustrative situation of the general disrespect of mainstream media for the blogosphere.

Much has been said about the importance of mainstream media: they have the fact-checkers, resources, and the investigative teams and they are the only ones who can do the kind of unearthing that enables us to live as an informed society. Bloggers, on the other hand, are the exploiters, the ones who take the hard work of journalists everywhere and turn it into cheap (or, in most cases, free) photocopies. Shame on those bloggers, shame, shame, shame.

Except that’s not really the case. Increasingly, the exploitation is happening on the side of the mainstream media.

In February, a friend of mine, Brooks Bayne, wrote a blog post about the suspiciously massive increase in followers for select Twitter users. Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter left him a comment explaining it was a possible effect of the Suggested Users feature that Twitter had recently implemented.

A couple of days later, The LA Times’ Mark Milian picked up the story and featured William’s comment. While Milian’s piece links the original blog post, no credit is given to Bayne. Milian simply credits the comment as having appeared on “another blog post.”

I contacted Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University and a champion of the blogosphere’s role in journalism, about the issue. He responded via e-mail, saying: “It happens all the time. It sucks.”

Rosen told me there was no standard for citing the information or ideas that journalists fid in blogs or new media.

“There should be,” he said.

He linked me to Can I Get A Link Please?, a site devoted to getting bloggers linked back by the mainstream publications that use their content, information, and ideas.

The blog lists a study by Brodeur released last year which reveals that over three quarters of the journalists surveyed use blogs to get story ideas, insight and angles. A piece at Taking The Blogosphere Seriously summarized the results as follows:

Nearly 70% of all reporters check a blog list on a regular basis. Over one in five (20.9%) reporters said they spend over an hour per day reading blogs. And a total of nearly three in five (57.1%) reporters said they read blogs at least two to three times a week… About half of reporters (47.5%) say they are “lurkers” – reading blogs but rarely commenting.

The majority of journalists thought blogs were having a significant impact on news reporting in all areas tested EXCEPT in the area of news quality. The biggest impact has been in speed and availability of news. Over half said that blogs were having a significant impact on the “tone” (61.8%) and “editorial direction” (51.1%) of news reporting.

Can I Get A Link Please? also features a clip from a panel at the Carnegie Counsel’s Ethics Studio featuring Rosen, in which he illustrates the importance of the link, not only in terms of attribution, but in terms of using the web as it was made to be used—to connect information.

The link—which is the idea that “you’re interested in this, but did you know about that?” Or “here is what I’m saying, but you should you see what they’re saying.” Or “you’re here but you know there is also this over there,”—is actually building out the potential of the web to link people, which is what Timothy Berners-Lee put into it in the first place. So when we link, we are expressing the ethic of the web, which is connecting people and knowledge.

… When we talk about this stereotypical conflict between the bloggers and the mainstream media—by the way, Michael, the only people who worry about whether bloggers are going to replace the news media are people who work in the news media. Nobody else talks about that.

But when we think about it, think about the news industry’s reaction to the rise of the web. When the major news sites built their first pages, which was about 1996, they decided to re-purpose their content from the print platform and put it it online, which certainly makes sense. You paid all the costs already for all the articles and features that you produced for The Washington Post newspaper, now you have this new way to distribute them, put them onoine, you get new audience, new readers… In re-purposing their content on the web, which is a rational thing, they made up some rules from themselves. One of the rules was: you don’t send people away from your domain. That is, you don’t link out from the Washington Post to the rest of the web. Because you’re the Washinton Post! You have everything… why would we send you anywhere else?

So when they decided to give birth to their first websites, their sites were actually anti-web because they didn’t understand the ethic of the link. And they didn’t accept the ethic of the link. And it’s taken them a long time to learn the ethic of the link because the Washington Post is willing to share their knowledge with you but the whole idea of connecting people to knowledge wherever it is, which is the ethic of the web, has taken them a while to understand. And so the bloggers were the people who came along and who developed the web first as a tool for informing people, because they didn’t have these rules. And they used it for what it was for.

As more publications, as more journalists get on the web with their own blogs, I hope that the practice of the link and proper attribution of bloggers improves dramatically. After all, it is an abrogation of a journalist’s responsibility to not do their due diligence in citing and crediting their sources appropriately, whether they deign take the blogosphere seriously or not.

In closing I offer another paragraph from Jay Rosen’s talk at the Carnegie Ethics Studio:

As a blogger what I try to do is do everything well, all the time and give you way more than you asked for every single time you come to my blog. More knowledge than you thought, more links than you bargained for, more nuance, more depth, more education than you imagined when you clicked that link.

Absolutely.

Of possible interest:
The Myth of the Parasitical Blogger at Salon.com by Glenn Greenwald echoes the sentiments I express in this piece, and notes a similar example of the mainstream media picking up story ideas from a blogger—in this case, his piece, which inspired an article in the Economist.

Maureen Dowd Gets a Pass, But in Journalism, Plagiarism Still Matters by BlogHer’s Kim Pearson offers the reaction to Dowd’s actions from the media as well as a list of past plagiarism scandals.

Id Maureen Dowd Guilty of Plagiarism? at TIME.com

Maureen Dowd Admits Inadvertently Lifting Line From TPM’s Josh Marshall at The Huffington Post

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A Newsroom in The Time of Swine Flu

April 30th, 2009 by AV Flox in blogging vs journalism, citizen journo

Today LA Observed posted a piece (the authorship of which is unknown as of the writing of this post) illustrating the issue of a bare-bones newsroom in the face of a potential crisis.

Editor-in-Chief: (Staring at CNN coverage of Swine Flu outbreak) We need something good and local on this swine flu thing. Get someone at the university to explain how this god damned thing jumped from pigs to people, how are they tracking it, what the hell does it all mean? Get that guy who did that piece on the flu vaccine shortage a couple years ago, remember that sidebar he did on the 1918 flu? That was great.

City editor: Koprowski?

Editor-in-Chief: Yeah, Koprowski!

City editor: Corporate laid him off. Health care reporter. Non vital.

Editor-in-Chief: What about that bi-ingual girl we had covering immigration? She can go find out what the Mexicans are saying.

City editor: She’s gone, too. Diversity stories don’t sell car ads.

Editor-in-Chief: Don’t we have anybody who covers the county health department?

City editor: Sure, that’s Barnes.

Editor-in-Chief: Well, have Barnes do something.

City editor: She’s in Washington.

Editor-in-Chief: Washington?

City editor: Yeah. She covers government. Federal, City, County, Municipal. She covers it all. She’s great.

Editor-in-Chief: What the hell is she doing in Washington? Can’t she cover the delegation by phone?

City editor: She’s not covering the delegation.

Editor-in-Chief: What?

City editor: We had a local bowling team of teabag guys head to the capital to protest taxes. We sent her along.

Editor-in-Chief: Good call. That’ll be a good piece. Well, let’s get a freelancer on it.

City editor: You really slashed my freelance budget.

Editor-in-Chief: Have Flannagan do it, he’ll write it for cheap. I pay him $25 a story and he works like a… I’ll call him..

(Phone rings)

Flannagan: Hello.

Editor-in-Chief: Timmy! It’s Bowes down at the Clarion, we need you to do a story for us.

Flannagan: (Moans)

Editor-in-Chief: What’s up? You don’t sound good.

Flannagan: I think I got the Swine Flu

Editor-in-Chief: Sheesh, you should go see a doctor.

Flannagan: Freelance. No insurance.

Editor-in-Chief: Don’t they have that $25 clinic down on Maple?

Flannagan: Hey, when are you guys gonna pay me for that invoice from January?

Editor-in-Chief: Gotta Go, Flannagan. Call me when you feel better.

City editor: So?

Editor-in-Chief: No go. Hey what about Soletti?

City editor: In Sports?

Editor-in-Chief: Sure, don’t Mexicans play high school sports?

City editor: I guess. I’ll check. (walks over to Soletti’s desk). Hey, man, what are you working on?

Soletti: I’ve got to design these two features pages, then at 3:00 I have a baseball game, from there I have to shoot over to a tennis match, and then there’s the spring football practice at 5:00. After that I need to come back here, write those up, get them on the page, and by then baseball scores and the playoff finals should start coming in. What’s up?

City editor: Bowes is wondering if you can get us something on swine flu for newsside?

Soletti: Are you kidding me?

City editor: Nothing big. Just make a phone call or two and put it in the system. I’ll tack it to a wire story and we’ll be good.

Soletti: Dude, I’m slammed.

City editor: Two calls. You can call that pitcher from the baseball team! What’s his name? Cabrera, right? He’s Mexican. Maybe he can tell you something. Maybe someone in his family has it.

Soletti: He’s Dominican.

City editor: Oh. OK. Get me something by 3:00. OK. Big story. Total coverage.

As more and more newspapers nationwide fold or face layoffs, citizen journalism becomes more and more important. Say what you like about the necessity of gatekeepers and editors and the high potential for the spread of misinformation, the fact remains that good, solid writing about local issues by the folks who live there is becoming a major force in how we learn and communicate information today.

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The Balance between Money and Credibility

December 16th, 2008 by AV Flox in blogging, blogging vs journalism, integrity

“I love YOU, but I really hate your URL shortener. It makes me feel dirty—and not in a good way.”

The comment came via Twitter direct message from Adele McAlear in reference to Adjix, the URL shortener I use to fit long URLs into Twitter’s notoriously concise 140 character-long messages.

Adjix is an ad network that pays you to shorten links, which is essentially “a cross between Tinyurl and Google Adwords.” When a reader clicks on an Adjix-shortened link, they are redirected to the URL you input, with an Adjix-generated ad at the top of the page (example).

People who use this shortener earn $0.10 per 1,000 unique link views and $0.20 for each click-through on an ad displayed with their link.

Since I started using Adjix in August of this year, I’ve posted 90 links and made $0.70. It’s been a fun experiment for me, both in terms of tracking click-throughs, which the service does for you, and in terms of learning how to generate some extra cash on Twitter. Its main appeal for me is that I don’t have to pimp anything I wouldn’t normally put out there, I’m essentially getting something back for doing what I usually do: sharing interesting things.

What I never considered is how my followers on Twitter felt about this.

A BLOGGER’S GOTTA EAT!

Blogging can be one of the most thankless things to which a person can devote himself. Whether you’re chronicling your adventures or imparting information within your industry, you’re a person who has to eat and pay bills.

As someone who loves what I read on your blog, I feel it’s my moral obligation to support you. If that means taking 2.5 seconds to scan the ads on your blog after reading your post and commenting, I’ll do it. And I’ll click, too, if something catches my eye. It’s how I say “thank you.”

I didn’t think finding creative ways to make money blogging was a revolutionary concept until this weekend when my stream on Twitter exploded with a controversy over a sponsored post by Chris Brogan, the respected social media adviser.

FULL DISCLOSURE

Brogan writes about how businesses and bloggers can forge strong ties by creating valuable content on social networks. He’s basically the go-to guy when it comes to anything relating to new media.

He’s also on the advisory board for IZEA, a company in next-generation marketing. Per the IZEA blog, bloggers that sign on with IZEA do not receive payment, but they do have options in the company.

Working through IZEA for Kmart, Brogan received a $500 gift card to shop ’til he dropped and blog all about it, as well as another $500 gift card to offer readers who participated in a contest at Dad-o-Matic, where this sponsored post appeared.

Writing for IZEA requires disclosure, meaning that bloggers who are pimping a brand for them have to say up front that they got something out of the deal. Brogan’s piece at Dad-o-Matic (titled, “Sponsored Post-Kmart Holiday Shopping Dad Style”) opened with the following statement: “This post is a sponsored post on behalf of Kmart via Izea. The opinions are mine.”

Simple enough, right? Wrong.

LET THEM EAT CHEESECAKE!

“Bloggers should be able to make money and find synchronous opportunities that work for them. What was off-putting is that Chris benefits by writing an overall favorable review and a prominent one at that,” Damien Basile wrote in response to a post by Geoff Livingston, CEO of Livingston Communications, which puts out The Buzz Bin, a blog about marketing, buzz and PR.

Basile has long respected Brogan’s work and position in the industry, but he had beef with how Brogan handled his part for the Kmart campaign and was very vocal about it. I chased him down earlier tonight to get a handle on why he’d become such an active detractor.

“It was never about how much he profits,” Basile told me on Gtalk. “What is up for discussion is the perception that he may be in a position of conflict and that is enough for me to question it.”

Basile doesn’t feel Brogan’s initial disclosure is sufficient. He thinks Brogan’s ties to IZEA should have been mentioned right on that post, in the event readers did not know he was on their blogger advisory board and held options with IZEA.

“Maybe it was a misnomer to call him a journalist,” Basile reflected. “I do recant that later, but my point was bringing up integrity. Integrity is for everyone. Just because we’re in new media doesn’t mean there are new standards. Truth is truth. Everyone deserves to know the full truth.”

I’m with Livingston and Brogan in disagreeing with Basile that a blogger is a journalist. We could learn a thing or two from them, yes. I’m not a reporter any longer, but I have the Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics up on my wall and it’s never too far out of mind when I blog: 1. Seek the truth and report it, 2. Minimize harm, 3. Act independently, 4. Be accountable.

A blogger may employ these tenets, but a blogger is not a journalist. Journalists have fact-checkers, ombudsmen, editors and publishers, those mighty gatekeepers of information. Journalists are expected to be unbiased. Perhaps most importantly, newsrooms and advertising departments are separated.

A blogger, on the other hand, is often a one-man show. I write the content for my blog, I fact-check, I edit, I publish. You know that saying: a writer who edits her own work has a fool for an editor. Quite right.

That’s not to say a blogger has no responsibility. A blogger has a big responsibility to his community: to provide valuable, quality content.

“How do you think Brogan should have done it?” I asked Basile. “Put up front: ‘Chris Brogan is a member of the IZEA advisory board and has options in IZEA’?”

“The word ‘via’ is very vague,” Basile responded. “It just tells me ‘its way of’ and the link to IZEA was to their main site [as opposed to information about Brogan’s association with the company].”

“How should it have been phrased?” I asked again.

Because this isn’t really about Chris Brogan or IZEA, you see, and to zero-in on that would be to make this a witch-hunt and what have witch-hunts ever gotten us? Nothing. No, this is bigger than that. This is the internet doing what it does best: self-correcting. Let’s not tear down, let’s build. Don’t like how someone does something? Tell me how to do it better.

Finally, Basile replied: “‘This post is sponsored by Kmart for IZEA. I am on the board of IZEA and receive equity options for being on it.’”

There is a valuable lesson here and it goes further than well-worded disclosures, debates about what makes one a journalist, or whether money invariably destroys a blogger’s credibility. As I said before, a blogger has a responsibility to his community. Mob mentality or not, I’m ultimately in accord with Basile: it’s about perception. The perception of your readers matters.

It doesn’t matter if your community thinks you did one thing when you really did another. It’s folly to stand by and call them stupid. They might be stupid, but perception is reality.

WHY SHOULD I CARE?

We should care because social media is about community. Brogan addressed several of the issues raised by his post in comments on blogs as well as in his own blog. That goes a long way.

It may not be enough for others who are disillusioned by the fact he is working with IZEA, but it’s responsible and in the end, all you can do is listen, address concerns as you best can and learn from the experience.

I CAN SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU

Darren Rowse, my one-man resource when it comes to making money blogging had a series a couple of years ago about credibility and blogging. His series closed with transparency:

I don’t mind bloggers getting something for themselves out of blogging but what does bother me is when I see bloggers attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of their readers by not being honest about their true motivations. Credibility comes when people trust that what you are saying is truth and when there is a lack of truth the consequences for a blogger can be significant.

Transparency also comes into play when you make a mistake or need to apologize for something you’ve done or written. The way bloggers admit to mistakes and rectify them says a lot about their character.

In taking on Adjix, I was experimenting. But I never disclosed the details of my experiment. In fact, very little on my blog speaks about what I’m doing here and why. This needs immediate rectification, which I vow to undertake.

For now, the short of it is: I make some money via another experiment, this one with Google Adwords, but outside of that, no one pays me for any content, including the features. However, my blog does serve me indirectly in that through it I have landed gigs contributing to other web publications and ghost-blogging.

HOW MUCH IS INTEGRITY WORTH?

I found myself asking this question earlier this evening as I chatted with Adele McAlear, head of McAlear Marketing, who’d first objected to my use of Adjix.

“My real problem is not that I have to look at a banner or text ad, or that you’re making money from it,” McAlear told me over Gtalk. “It’s that the URL doesn’t show the true URL of the page you’ve sent me to and this makes linking a pain. It makes me not want to link to you at all, or re-tweet, etc.”

This was a definite downside to the use of Adjix, as retweets are the currency of Twitter. I explained to McAlear that in the Adjix banners, there’s an arrow on the far right that you can click to reveal the true URL.

“I didn’t know that about the arrow,” McAlear told me. “I don’t click on anything that looks like an ad because I never know what I’ll get and where I’m going to be taken.”

Coming from a web-savvy woman, that said a lot. How many other readers didn’t know how to get rid of the banner? Was I short-changing myself for the promise of a quick dime?

“Aside from linking, there’s perception,” McAlear went on. “I think you are a great writer, you have a great handle on social media, marketing, and how all of this works but, yet, this type of URL shortener reminds me of spam. To me, it kind of cheapens your personal brand.”

There it was. She’d said the key word: perception.

“It comes down to balance,” she said. “What your readers and followers on Twitter expect versus what Adjix gives you. I have no issues with anyone making money but there are different ways to do it.”

Integrity versus $0.70. Sure, I could make more if I devoted myself to better employing Adjix. But is it worth it?

Do you make money blogging? Is a disclosure enough to keep yourself from losing credibility? Have you ever unsubscribed from someone’s blogs because they wrote a sponsored post? Your opinion matters whether you’re a webcock or just a reader. We’re all the web. Tell me how you really feel.

UPDATE

December 16, 2007, 5:28PM: In an excellent display of what tuning in to user perspective is all about, Joe Moreno, President of Adjix contacted Adele McAlear after reading this post to let her know that based on her feedback, Adjix has changed the arrow on banners to a simple hyperlink that says, “Remove ad.”

Kudos, Adjix. This is what the web is all about.

Of possible interest:

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  • AV Flox writes about web culture; new media’s gradual overthrow of old media; trends in social media; and the complicated entanglements people get themselves into as we venture forth into this new world where, more and more, the analog is colliding with the digital.

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