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Posted by Cyndy Aleo-Carreira on May 12th, 2008
Have we finally reached the tipping point for actually stating that we have ethics and where we draw those lines?
It wasn't even a month ago when I mentioned that all bloggers may need a personal code of ethics as detailed as Kara Swisher's if we wanted to be taken seriously as journalists. There is often a fuzzy line, especially when you are writing in a world where blogs often co-sponsor parties with the companies they are supposed to be covering.
Duncan Riley took the time to spell out the plan for attribution for his new site, The Inquisitr, after what sounds like a rowsing email battle about attribution in one of his articles. Having had some of those myself with sites big enough that it would amaze you that they bothered to whine to little old me in the first place, I know where he's coming from.
My policy is, and has always been, to attribute any possible source that I've seen. That doesn't mean that I see everything; I've lost track of how many feeds I actually have coming in, and since I'm still using my desktop RSS reader until this blog switches over to the Profy platform since it integrates with my desktop blog editor, I don't always get everything downloaded before my article goes live. I try to link sources organically (in line) because I know that I personally am more likely to click linked text in an article to get more information than click anything listed at the bottom as "Source" but I know that other bloggers prefer it the other way round.
As I stated in Duncan's comments section, however, I'm sure there is at least one big reason why many of the tech blogs refuse to attribute their sources: it ruins their shot at having the lead article on a topic on Techmeme. If you link to a source, unless you are a bigger blog, you will are relegated to the "always a bridesmaid, never a bride" status of "discussion" on Techmeme, considered the Holy Grail of article recognition. None of the big players wants to be listed as "discussion," especially if the blog enjoying the headline is a much smaller blog, and they want to look like they always break the story, not follow it.
Svetlana has allowed each of us authors to develop our own code of ethics for our articles, but stated very clearly that we were always to attribute our sources. For me personally, I have no investments, so you don't need to worry I have financial interests to divulge. I don't blog about the platform (no matter how much I might like it) because I am also in the position of being evangelist as well as writer. My husband is a developer and while I may blog about companies he interacts with as I discover them through him, I will not blog about any of his projects, nor ask any of my fellow authors here to do so (although I may ping some of you occasionally to see if you'd like to). I do cover things from my husband's friends because I am pretty blunt and have no problem saying I hate something even if it was built by someone my husband likes. It's the curse of being married to me. And if I've seen a topic covered elsewhere, I will always, ALWAYS attribute my source.
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| paul | May 12th, 2008 at 9:45 am |
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Duncan isn’t a Tech guy, he’s a gosip blogger and hears voices in the wind. | |
| Gabe | May 12th, 2008 at 6:06 pm |
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Cyndy, Techmeme doesn’t consider whether you’ve linked to other blog posts when deciding if your post should be a headlines (vs. merely “Discussion”). So contrary to what you’ve stated, linking doesn’t ruin your shot at getting a lead. Hmm, perhaps it would be good to slightly bias Techmeme in favor of people who link… | |
| Cyndy Aleo-Carreira | May 12th, 2008 at 6:20 pm |
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Gabe, how about “for some blogs?” I know that it also depends on who’s reading it, who’s linking to it, who’s sharing it, secret algorithm stuff, however, I know from experience that the links can completely FUBAR where you end up. For example, how my interview with Ben Golub ended up as “discussion” under Scoble’s post about his FriendFeed page. (Yes, I went back for the archive for you: http://www.techmeme.com/080502/h1110). Was it linking to FriendFeed at the same time Scoble did? The combination of keywords of Louis Gray, Techmeme, and FriendFeed in the interview? There is a lot of ego involved in not only breaking stories but also appearing on the leaderboard, and the bigger folks certainly don’t want to admit they might be getting stories from the small fry. See also Matthew Ingraham and Paris Lemon today. Everything is a game, and Techmeme is one of the prizes. | |
| Duncan | May 12th, 2008 at 9:06 pm |
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“it ruins their shot at having the lead article on a topic on Techmeme” ssssshhhhhhhhhh Seriously though: as much as I love Techmeme and Gabe, I honestly believe doing the right thing balances out in the long term, even if there’s some short term loss involved in terms of Techmeme headlines. | |
| Cyndy Aleo-Carreira | May 12th, 2008 at 9:25 pm |
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Duncan, have I seen you comment here before? I totally agree, which is why I’ve cited every possible thing I’ve seen to the point where I’m nearly neurotic about it. Which is why I was SO ticked off at the one email exchange that I had… and I wonder if your problem was the same one that I had. | |
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