Swing State Project

Every mainstream news organization has its own sets of ethics rules, but all of them agree broadly on what constitutes ethical journalism. Information should be verified before it is printed, and people who are involved in a story should be given a chance to air their viewpoints, especially if they are under attack. Reporters should avoid conflicts of interest, even significant appearances of conflicts, and disclose any significant ones. Often, a conflict means being disqualified to cover a story or a subject. When errors are discovered or pointed out by internal or external sources, they must be corrected. And there should be a clear wall between editorial content and advertising.

That is the type of ethical list that would only come from a ink-on-dead-tree writer. Every single point is totally irrelevant to the blogosphere. And it doesn't mention any of the ethical points that are discussed online, such as linking, quoting, traffic disclosure, etc.

Let's look at Cohen's list point by point:

Information should be verified before it is printed

That is an important thing for the PRINTED PRESS. The reason it is an ethical rule for newspapers is that you can't undo something once the press starts running. That is not true online, with instant corrections and no stranded newspapers, there is really no reason why this rule needs to exist.

people who are involved in a story should be given a chance to air their viewpoints, especially if they are under attack

Yes, people under attack should be able to air their viewpoint -- on their own fucking blog. That is why link ethics would have been something that should have been discussed. If I say Adam Cohen is a hopeless hack struggling for a relevance beyond what his writing bestoys, then Adam should be able to respond on his blog and send a track-back or post in the comments or link to me for the Technorati so that he can air his views in a way that is part of the conversation. But trying to get bloggers to give equal time to their prey has got to be one of the dumbest suggestions I have ever heard.

Reporters should avoid conflicts of interest, even significant appearances of conflicts, and disclose any significant ones. Often, a conflict means being disqualified to cover a story or a subject. When errors are discovered or pointed out by internal or external sources, they must be corrected.

I agree. BUT BLOGGERS AREN'T REPORTERS! Bloggers can be reporters, but the only thing they are by definition is a blogger. I think people should be disqualified to cover a story only if they know abso-fucking-lutely nothing about it (as we a discovering with Adam Cohen and blogs). I think that should be disclosed. I think Cohen's editor should have used big letters at the top of the column to disclose: Adam Cohen has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to blogger ethics, so he wrote a column talking about imposing journalistic ethics (even though bloggers aren't journalists).

And there should be a clear wall between editorial content and advertising.

The vast majority of bloggers are one person shops. If Cohen had done any research before writing this he could have quickly learned this. Firewall? With one person? Is Cohen trying to make himself look like an idiot?

In the future, if reporters want to write on this without making themselves look like an idiot, here is a handy reference:

REPORTERS GUIDE TO WRITING ABOUT BLOG ETHICS

• Trying to apply journalism ethics to blogging is like trying to use football rules for a baseball game. Any reporter who does this is going to suffer the same response as one would receive for yelling that a baserunner stealing second should be penalized for a false start and the battle should move back five yards.
• If you are going to write about imposing ethics from another field upon blogging, I suggest you turn to the legal profession. Instead of asking bloggers to disclose income, bloggers should be expected not to disclose unless it is in the best interests of the client. Since most blogging has more to do with advocacy than with journalism, this would be a far more realistic expectation.
• If you want to talk about obeying journalist ethics, why don't you focus on journalists first. I'd like to see a column asking why Judith Miller hasn't been fired and black-listed for life. I'd like to see some columns on Fox News, on the Administration's fake news, on publicist interaction with journalists, on media adoption of Frank Luntz talking points.
• Trying to impose rules on bloggers that don't exist for other medium's will make any reporter look like an idiot.

One final point, feel free to quote bloggers for a story on blogging. I don't know if Cohen talked to any bloggers for this, but if he did it is clear that they were not quoted because it would have undermined the narrow agenda Adam Cohen was pushing. Not surprising to see this from one of Judith Miller's co-workers.