Back in December I took one upside the head from a reader who accused me of (among other things), engaging in pseudo-journalism in this space. The comment took me a little by surprise; although the media is a constant source of fascination, it had never occurred to me that my posts might come across as a wanna-be reporting. Rather, since about my kindergarten years I have felt a keen sense of responsibility to share my opinions with people, even if that meant putting them in a head-lock to make sure they didn't miss anything. While it's tough to form such a intimate embrace with readers online, I do hope that the quantity of opinions here have somehow made up for the quality and lack of bias some readers may look for.
Since that dust-up in December I've been trying to pay more attention to the blogger/journalist relationship, however. A large body of commentary has already been dedicated to the evolving free press ecosystem over the last five or six years, so I've been making hay with the opportunity to engage in a brand new navel-gazing exercise.
All that research came into sharp focus this afternoon, when I received an anonymous comment from a Right Up Your Alley Reader reader about the status of a major Kamloops business operation.
The fact that this information was provided anonymously has created a quandary for me; should I publish, or not?
I bounced the idea off a couple of experienced journalists who generously heard me out, then advised against publication unless I can confirm the information independently. And so I guess it's back to this... am I a journalist? And even if I don't consider myself to be one, should I recognize and conform to the ethics of that profession?
In his 2006 column for the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review, Time to get tough: Managing anonymous reader comments, Vin Crosbie wrote:
If you're going to let someone publish something in your publication, whether in print or online, know their identity and read their submission before its publication. If they truly are willing to stand behind their words, then they must be willing to withstand identification by the publisher who has legal responsibility for the publication of their words.
If they request that the publisher disguise or omit their identity in publication, let them first provide the publisher with a cogent reason. (The publisher should state somewhere on the page's boilerplate that a writer's name may be withheld for reasons but only after prior identification.)
But that's a different context, more oriented towards blogs on media web sites, rather than independent free-standing blogs like mine, although the question of legal responsibility is essentially identical. A response by Robin Baker to that column took a less intrusive approach to anonymous comments:
When you read a blog, understand it from the perspective that I do. Blogs are about the doughnut shop. Whether it be Tim Horton’s or Dunkin Donuts. It is not Blogs or Bloggers intruding on Journalism, it is about journalism listening in on the conversation going on between the donuts next door.
OK, so that whole doughnut thing kind of threw me, but that stuff about the conversation is pretty close to on-target. Requiring independent confirmation might satisfy journalists, but is that really relevant to a blogging community that is more about dialogue than one-way delivery of content?
There have been a variety of attempts over the last few years to develop code of ethics for bloggers, but these attempts have largely fallen by the wayside because: 1). bloggers are fiercely independent, so top-down concepts are essentially non-starters, and; 2). bloggers refused to adopt a code based upon the code of ethics for journalists.
Many bloggers would prefer that the community at large have the opportunity to vet comments and information (much like peers review research papers) to the withholding of information by publishers. One of the most promising (and recent) blogger codes was originally produced last year by Tim O'Rielly, a popular technology publisher, and is now being exercised further by the blogging community here at the Blogging Wikia.
Here again, there is a bias against purely anonymous comments, and part of the motivation for that seems to be that the publisher (read: the blogger) assumes responsibility for all comments, even (and especially) anonymous comments. Bloggers can look foolish (and do real harm, sometimes to themselves) if they publish anonymous comments that are untrue or unfair.
I don't know here I stand on the issue of anonymous comments (yet), but if you left an anonymous comment today, understand that I am doing my best to figure out what to do with your information. I can't provide you the same protection as a professional journalist (there isn't much in the way of Canadian case law that provides for a blogger to protect the identity of a source), but if you do confirm your identity with me I won't reveal it unless forced to do so, which I suspect is unlikely (although I am not a lawyer, and nothing here should be construed as legal advice). Just leave a comment below (your email information will not be published) or email me directly at barry@barrybaker.ca. Or, if you prefer, just look me up in the book and give me a call.
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