PROFESSIONALISM, ETHICS, AND STANDARDS (July 25, 2007)
•    Should bloggers be held to the same standards as journalists?
•    Should they be held to the same standards as published authors?
•    The aftereffects of the Kathy Sierra controversy
•    The professionalism of blogging

READINGS
"Weblog Ethics," http://rebeccablood.net/handbook/excerpts/weblog_ethics.html
"Society of Professional Journalists: Ethics," http://www.spj.org/ethics.asp
"Call for a Blogger's Code of Conduct," http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/call_for_a_blog_1.html
"A Bloggers' Code of Ethics," http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php
"Blogging: Professionalism and Passion," http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2006/12/14/blogging-professionalism-and-passion/

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK: Blogging as a Business

Pay per post
•    PayPerPost -- http://payperpost.com/
•    CreamAid -- http://www.creamaid.com/
•    ReviewMe -- http://www.reviewme.com/
•    Buy Blog Comments -- http://www.buyblogcomments.com/
Personally, I'm ambivalent about these projects.

Other options
•    Content aggegators like Squidoo
•    Video platforms like YouTube and Revver
•    Selling eBooks
•    https://www.payloadz.com/
•    http://www.lulu.com/

COMMENTARY FOR THIS WEEK

Major problems in blogging and writing

Plagiarism

While the nuances of plagiarism have changed with the advent of the Internet, the basic issues and concerns have not. Even though it's easier to copy and paste text from other, perhaps multiple sources, without any clue of attribution, at base, plagiarism is wrong -- no matter where it happens. http://www.plagiarism.org/ is a great Web site for those interested in online perspectives on plagiarism.

Plagiarism is not the same as copyright infringement, although there are similarities. Basically, plagiarism entails noncommercial use, while copyright infringement involves commercial use. You can explore that further at http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/plagiarism-vs-copyright.php

We've already discussed fair use, which helps mitigate against plagiarism somewhat. If you reuse small portions of someone else's text -- such as a quote block in a blog entry -- with attribution, it's OK.

High-profile examples
•    Jayson Blair, New York Times
•    Mike Barnicle, Boston Globe

http://www.regrettheerror.com/ is a great blog that tracks errors, fabrications, and plagiarism in media.

Other issues
•    Errors --  is it enough to correct with a strike-through? (Recent New York Times piece, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/business/media/23link.html) My take is that if an error is made, it should be corrected in the original post, not just in a new post linking to the old post. You want people finding the old post to see the correction in context.
•    Fabrications -- Unless an entry or piece of work is clearly fiction -- or creative nonfiction -- outright fabrications are wrong. This is more of an issue in journal- or diary-like blogs, akin to the problems with memoirs a la James Frey

Journalistic ethics

I'd start with the Society for Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics -- http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

The SPJ is generally considered an organization for newspaper reporters and tends to attract new professionals fresh out of journalism school. I'm not aware of a strong parallel in the magazine industry, as the American Society of Magazine Editors is more business focused.

Does every item in the SPJ code translate to blogging? I'd say that in general, they're all good ideas, but most of them fall under professional journalism's overarching goal of objectivity. Blogs don't need to be objective.

Standards in publishing

Fact checking
•    In newspapers, names, addresses, titles, etc.
•    In magazines -- at the good magazines -- all facts and direct quotations, paraphrased. All sources contacted to confirm
•    In books, my understanding is that nonfiction books aren't fact checked at all. Why? Here's a good piece on the Frey case: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113858811205659673-1oPuv_I9jyv2P9k_u8qNN_3obQM_20070130.html?mod=rss_free

The state of blogger ethics

Remember the Kathy Sierra incident I mentioned earlier in the course? One of the outcomes of that was Tim O'Reilly's proposed Blogger's Code of Conduct -- http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/call_for_a_blog_1.html. Here is the resulting draft: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/04/draft_bloggers_1.html. Rebecca Blood predated O'Reilly's code of conduct with a pretty good look at blogger ethics: http://rebeccablood.net/handbook/excerpts/weblog_ethics.html. And Cyberjournalist merged O'Reilly with the SPJ code, which seems a step in the right direction: http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php

Basically, all of this appears to be a slight improvement on basic netiquette. I believe we touched on netiquette earlier in the class, as well, but here's a quick review: http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html

Professionalism

Journalism professionalized relatively quickly. Columbia set up the first school of journalism in 1912 -- 20 years after Joseph Pulitzer first offered them money to do so. The first American newspaper, the Boston News-Letter, launched in 1704. Ostensibly, the American newspaper had its largest influence between 1830 (the arrival of the penny press) and 1930 (the first radio news). Columbia opened near the end of the golden age.

The first American medical school opened in 1767. The first American law school might very well be the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary, established 1779. The world's first dentistry school, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, opened in 1840.

Parallels to the professionalism of webmasters

World Organization of Webmasters
http://www.joinwow.org/

International Webmasters Association
http://www.iwanet.org/

American Association of Webmasters
http://www.aawebmasters.com/

A Brief History of Webmastery
http://www.webdeveloper.com/html/html_wg_webhistory.html
(good for its consideration of webmasters as a team, not individuals)

HTML Writers Guild
http://www.hwg.org/

Does blogging need to professionalize? I'd say no. Blogging is writing, and you can do so in a number of settings, personal and professional. There might even be different standards for personal and professional blogging.

What do we think of ProBlogger? http://www.problogger.net/