{"id":1941,"date":"2004-04-05T15:36:04","date_gmt":"2004-04-05T19:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2004\/04\/05\/1941.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:46:02","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:46:02","slug":"lots-of-questions-no-answers-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2004\/04\/05\/lots-of-questions-no-answers-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Lots of questions, no answers, as usual…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On or about the morning of March 28, Your Humble Blogger put together a blogroll, of sorts<\/a>. Two of the sites I linked to were Nathan Newman<\/a> and the Daily Kos<\/a>. Shortly after I linked to them, both of them made comments about the events in Fallujah that were not overly sympathetic to the deceased and their families, nor expressed outrage at the behaviour of the mob. Both of them expressed dismay that the press were reporting that ‘civilians’ were killed, and called the deceased ‘mercenaries’. Nathan Newman pointed out<\/a> that “Iraqi insurgents are hardly going to distinguish between rent-a-soldiers and the real thing.” Kos went further, saying “They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.”\n

The next thing, more or less, is that Michael Friedman on Fried Man<\/a> drew attention to the Kos post, and specifically asked his readers to contact DKos’ advertisers to complain. Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit<\/a>, then wrote about the DKos comment, and linked to the Fried Man. Mr. Reynolds also noted Nathan Newman’s post on the topic. The Fried Man had 10,000 visitors the next day; both Nathan Newman and DKos had many hostile and profane posts.\n

Since that time, at least four campaigns and organizations have severed their relationship with DKos, and John Kerry’s campaign blog<\/a> has removed its link to his site (tho’ not to Nathan Newman’s).\n

Now, I assume that my Gentle Readers all know that I don’t agree with everything said on other sites that I admire or link to. But in case it comes up, I am appalled by the behaviour of the mob, I continue to hope that each death in Iraq will be the last, I do feel the deaths of Americans more strongly and more emotionally than the deaths of non-compatriots (tho’ I know that’s illogical and consider it unethical), I am not certain whether it’s appropriate to call the men ‘mercenaries’ but am pretty sure that calling them ‘civilians’ is misleading, and I am appalled that our nation is hiring private security forces in a war zone. I read both Mr. Newman’s and Kos’ comments without being shocked by either. There.\n

More important than my own thoughts, though, this little blogotempest is bringing up lots of interesting points about blogs, journalists, campaigns, ethics, and appropriate behaviour. Matt Stoller has an interesting take<\/a> on BoPNews, contrasting talk-radio with blogs. Atrios makes Some Changes<\/a> in his own policies at Eschaton. Al Giordano calls it John Kerry’s Sistah Souljah Moment<\/a>.\n

My own quick thought is that we need a Blog Code of Ethics, which can help us deal with things like this. Bloggers deal with money but much more with influence, and both are powerful motivators. I have no idea what the proper code of ethics might be, but it would be nice to have a copy, together with some case studies and examples of how to deal with various situations. As journalists do with their code<\/a>, we could each choose to follow it, amend it, or publish our own<\/a>. It would be a starting point, though.\n

I suspect many of us don’t ever think about ethical issues raised by our position as broadcasters. That’s OK for someone like me, with a dozen (wonderful) readers and few obligations (other than to Jed<\/a>, which I’ve disclosed nearly often enough). I can make my ethical decisions as I go along. Do I make stupid comments? Sure, that’s why we’re here. Do I make factual errors? I do, on occasion, and I try to correct them. I try to give credit where it is due, and in general blog appropriately.\n

Kos has a harder job, and very few rules to rely on. He evidently gets something like 100,000 hits a day; he fund-raises, he takes advertisements, he directs people to other sites both with a blogroll and with linked posts, and he provides opportunities for guest bloggers. There are many opportunities for conflict of interest, and for misrepresentation, miscommunication, and misunderstanding. He doesn’t appear to notice the need for a code of ethics to guide him, trusting his own judgment on the fly. I think that’s dangerous, for him and for his associates. I don’t mean to single him out, here, either; if Lawrence Lessig<\/a> isn’t flying by the seat of his ethical pants, I’m not aware of his structural safety net.\n

None of this is particularly new; I found this article<\/a> by John Hiler from two years ago and this one<\/a> from Cyberjournalist.net<\/a> from a year ago. There are plenty more; very few of them seem to deal with specifics of conflict of interest. Which makes sense; a site like DKos, with the astonishing quantity of his potential conflicts, didn’t really exist until a few months ago. It does now, though, and if a bunch of people had worked on the issue beforehand, then he, his associates, and his advertisers would have had an easier time of it this week.\n

Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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