Bloggers Have No Ethics

"Bloggers have no ethics" has long been the battle-cry of mass media in an attempt to keep the medium down and to keep the validity of their mainstream news channels high.

Jay Rosen is one smart dude. You should check out his excellent Blog, PressThink, his keynote presentation titled, If Blogging Had No Ethics, Blogging Would Have Failed (But It Didn’t. So Let’s Get A Clue) and his latest Blog post also titled, If Bloggers Had No Ethics Blogging Would Have Failed, But it Didn’t. So Let’s Get a Clue.

"Because we have the Web…

There’s the press, but there is also the press sphere, an open system.

Within the press we find the people we know as ‘professional’ journalists.

Within the press sphere we find pro journalists and the people formerly known as the audience, mixed together.

Because we have the Web…

The means of production—editorially speaking—have been distributed to the population at large."

At the same time, in the UK several mainstream journalists condemned Disney for quoting Bloggers on the promotional material for their new movie, The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas.

Jason Solomons, chairman of the film section of The Critics’ Circle, said:

"These online postings are unreliable. We don’t know who the writers are… Anybody can make up an internet name – it could be the producer himself or one of the actors… It’s a very dangerous area because the anonymity gives them complete freedom to express themselves without being accountable for what they have written. It’s actually cowardly and I don’t think it’s helpful to use them."

In other news: 95 of the top 100 newspapers in America now have blogs.

What’s the trend here?

Disruption is doing what disruption does best.

Disrupting.

On one hand, the traditional media channels have to protect their legacy and integrity. On the other hand, if they don’t Blog, get engaged with the community and leverage the search engine optimization and reciprocated linking power of Blogs all will be lost (including their public image).

Are Blogs written and produced by the mainstream media the only ones the general public should trust?