define: ethics

a talk about ethics and blogging

K.G. SchneiderFree Range Librarian

http://freerangelibrarian.comkgs@bluehighways.comInternet Librarian 2005

Why Ethics Matter (“Micro”)

Ethics as a Value

• Through your blog, you represent yourself and everything you’re connected with, including librarianship

• For most readers, you are the last stop between the reader and the truth

Ethics as a Strategy

• Information has a long half-life

• The rules of ethics are also the rules of self-preservation

• The blogosphere can be cruel

• The biblioblogosphere can be crueler

Why Ethics Matter (“Macro”)

• The harder we work to make the world a moral place, the better it is for everyone

• “Books are for use”: we are a profession defined by our concern for others

Five Rules to Blog By

1. Transparency

2. Fairness

3. Cite it

4. Get it right

5. Admit mistakes

Two Other Codes of Ethics

Rebecca Blood

• Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true

• If material exists online, link to it when you reference it

• Publicly correct any misinformation

• Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry

• Disclose any conflict of interest• Note questionable and biased

sources

Cyberjournalist.net

1. Be honest and fair 2. Minimize harm3. Be accountable

Five Things Not To Say

1. “It’s only a blog”2. “So-and-so does it”3. “Everyone understood what I

meant”4. “They can always look it up”5. “Nobody trusts the Web

anyway”

define: transparency

• “An activity is transparent if all information about it is open and freely available”

-- Wikipedia

• “For most blogs, we want to know what the writer’s starting point is.”

– David Weinberger, author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined

1. Transparency

Transparency Tools

• A clear “About” page– Can be humorous– Must be true

• Full disclosure about conflicts, biases, or vested interests

• A commitment to honesty about who you are and what drives your writing

The Blogosphere is Skeptical

• “[Talon Press correspondent Jeff Gannon] was known for his friendly questions, including asking Bush at last month's news conference how he could work with Democrats ‘who seem to have divorced themselves from reality.’”

Lack of Transparency Can Catch Up With You

Transparency can be Strategic

Transparency Minimizes Fisking

• Fisking: “The act of critiquing, often in minute detail, an article, essay, argument, etc. with the intent of challenging its conclusion or theses by highlighting logical fallacies and incorrect facts ”

2. Cite it

define: citation

• “The pertinent information needed to find the full text of a publication.”

– Florida State University Library

Bad Citations

• “…that latter thought will reinforce the opinion of the Blog Person who included ‘Michael Gorman is an idiot’ in his reasoned critique, because no opinion that comes from someone who is ‘antidigital’ (in the words of another Blog Person) could possibly be correct.”

– Michael Gorman, “Revenge of the Blog People,” Library Journal, 2/15/2005

Tips for Good Citation

• Link to and name your sources and documentation

• Avoid anonymous sources

• Always check a secondary source (e.g. linking to a blog that says the moon is made of green cheese). You are responsible for what your blog says!

3. Get it right

define: getting it right

• “The quality of being near to the true value”

– wordnet.princeton.edu

• Maureen Dowd, 10/22/2005: “Investigative reporting is not stenography”

Being Wrong has Consequences

• “100 days after the fall of Baghdad, none of the sensational allegations about chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons given to Miller have panned out, despite the furious crisscrossing of Iraq by U.S. weapons hunters.”

– Jack Shafer, Slate, July 2003

There is nothing more pathetic than a librarian who gets the

facts wrong.*

* Not even a New York Times reporter who gets the facts wrong.

How to Get It Right

• Check your facts

• Check your facts

• Check your facts

• Check your facts

• Don’t publish until you check your facts

• Re-check your facts after you publish

More Tips for Accuracy: Sources

• Examine each source. Is it trustworthy? What motives does your source have? Who else relies (or does not rely) on your source?

• Dual-source whenever possible.

• Avoid anonymous sources.

• Link to your source.

4. Be Fair

define: fairness

• “The attitude of being just to all.”– World Health Organization

• Giving people an equal chance.

• Not letting partiality stand in the way of what is right.

Fairness: Tips

• Let a source know when he or she is “on the record.”

• You can be opinionated, but don’t present opinion as fact.

• If you claim to be objective, then you better damn well present all sides of the issue.

• Let your readers comment (within reason).

5. Admit Mistakes

define: mistake

• “To choose wrongly” – Merriam Online

• Mistakes can be errors of judgment or errors of fact

Bill Keller’s Mea Culpa

• “By waiting a year to own up to our mistakes, we allowed the anger inside and outside the paper to fester. … If we had lanced the WMD boil earlier, we might have damped any suspicion that THIS time, the paper was putting the defense of a reporter above the duty to its readers.”

Addressing Mistakes in Blogs

• Be direct: alert your readers of the error

• Add to or modify a post in such a way that the amendment can be compared to the original error (Italics, bolding, notifications, strike-throughs)

• Consider explaining how you made the error and why it will be harder for you to make this error the next time around

Ethics Exception: The Intentionally Unreliable Narrator

Ethics Exception: April Foolery

Ethics Exception:Well-Known Humor Sites

Last

When in doubt,

Do what you know to be right.