Help Us Understand Ourselves

This is so cool. An academic conference on Blogging, Journalism & Credibility with select journalists and bloggers discussing the issues surrounding this incredible year in political blogging. Check out the panel of experts. At least four or five of them even have blogs of their very own!

It’s good to see that they did invite at least one non-media or academic blogger — Hinderocket. (We on the left are well represented by the corporate media and liberal academia, of course, so we needn’t have any similarly popular grassroots partisan bloggers on the panels.)

They seem extremely concerned about the bloggers inconscionable lack of ethics so I’m hoping they can find some ways to correct our egregious practices. Perhaps they could convene a panel with John Ellis, Howell Raines and Judith Miller to give us some guidance.

If anyone were to ask, I might point out that there are a few blogging practices that the media might want to adopt for themselves. One is that we back up our assertions of fact through linking. The internet makes it quite easy to footnote our posts and our readers demand that we do it. (Too bad journalism doesn’t have the same requirements or the public wouldn’t be constantly misinformed by “opinion” writers who dishonestly whore for corporate interests on the op-ed pages of major newspapers.) And, as shocking as it is, most of us adhere to that “ethical guideline” without even a professional association or stylebook to guide us. Imagine that.

Not that I would ever presume that those who created and fuel the blogosphere 24/7 from cubicals and laptops in Starbucks around the country have anything useful to say on the matter. Best leave it to the experts.