Saturday was BlogherCon and it was excellent. You couldn’t move without tripping on a fabulous and interesting woman who had something new and thoughtful to add to the conversation. I think my panel was pretty successful. You can see some pictures and a transcript and feel free to ask me any follow-up questions.
I have a few substantive take-aways but the most glaring was how different all the bloghers were in their purpose for blogging and what they hoped to achieve. It reinforced my theory that we should stop talking about bloggers and start talking about people who use blogging tools to communicate. Bold is not enough to stress how important I think this is. Blogging software is a tool that makes it easy for non-geeks to participate in one-to many conversations without relying on intermediaries who may influence, edit, censor or reject their voice. As Jay Rosen has written, blogs are little first amendment machines. They are tools. Bloggers are people who use those tools for different purposes.
[aside- great fun getting to talk to Jay for the first time. He was a client on the Apple blogger brief-- meeting a client for the first time months after the brief is filed is one of the really weird things about the kind of law I practice.]
Why does this matter?
I sat in discussions that could be reasonably referred to as ‘politics,’ ‘journalism,’ and ‘business.’ In all three sessions, issues of linking to opposing views, objectivity, disclosure, getting paid, self-identification, and others were discussed. But I think the conversations were jumbled because they tended to discuss what ‘bloggers’ should do, instead of what marketers who use weblogs, or journalists, or politicians, or advocates should do. I think it is fairly obvious that the rules are different depending on how you use your blog. If EFF has a blog—they don’t have to link to opposing views, but they should disclose that they are advocates. Same should apply to political blogs. Probably the only rule that is consistent is that you should disclose what category you think you belong in. If Coke has a blog—they don’t need to link to pepsi. Then you should apply the rules applicable for that category (marketing blog).
But conflating the categories—requiring all to follow all rules (or no rules)—is not helpful. For example, I remain puzzled why so many bloggers want to call themselves citizen journalists. My sense of ‘citizen journalism’ is that it describes today’s state of technology, which allows any citizen to collect and disseminate newsworthy information without relying on third parties to disseminate it. I think what many bloggers who call themselves citizen journalists are doing is more akin to the role of “sources who do not need third parties.” For example, I consider myself a source. Either as an expert in cyberlaw or advocate for cyberliberties, I see my obligations for disclosure under these labels. As an expert I am obliged to understand and explain all views and as an advocate- to dispute them effectively. My obligations are the same when I write op-eds or post on my blog. I think this is different than what I expect of citizen journalists. For example, I expect to hear ‘many sides--’ blogs of citizen journalists’ are where I expect to find opposing views on the blogroll, not on blogs of ‘sources.’ Taking on the title of citizen journalist requires adherence to some category of expectations that adhere to the term journalist. Whatever they are, [insert discussion of what is a journalist] it is different then being a source, or a marketer, or a company, or a mommyblog. I think managing this distinction is what motivates Dan Gilmor’s proposal to tag content. Though I disagree in practice, in principle it would be useful to force bloggers who choose to be citizen-journalists to distinguish themselves from those acting as sources.
[As an aside, being a source is not derogative or less important than being a journalist. I’d rather be a source. Maybe some are right and in the future all journalists will be is people who point to weblogs of sources. But there is a difference. For example, if I give a speech, there’s a difference between my expectations for a NYT report on it and my posting the speech to a blog. Or, if I attend a hearing, I don’t sit in the press box, and those who do come up to me after to ask my opinion. ‘They’ are the journalists. Even if I write my own review of the hearing, I am doing it from my perspective. I don’t believe I must to mention what people I disagree with said. I think that someone reporting the news of that hearing does have that obligation.]
As far as I can tell, there are relatively few upsides to being a citizen journalist instead of a source. Maybe the problem is that pre-Internet, the term journalist was so linked to being employed by a media organization that it came to encompass those who report on the news, and those who opine about it where instead, it would have been more helpful to distinguish the two. Maybe rejecting this conflation is one way to move the discussion forward.