Thoughts on blog policies
I’ve been meaning to write about blog policies for a while, but I keep forgetting. Well, I finished my work and I refuse to become acquainted with boredom at my dream internship or in Tampa at all (this love won’t fade). So what better time than now? (Warning, I have a lot to say about blog policies).
Back in December and soon after I accepted my internship at Roll Call, my editor-to-be gave me a ring one night. She said the paper had recently checked my blog and read about my accepting the internship, and that I had to take the post down.
Apparently, Roll Call had a written policy that no employee could blog about anything in Roll Call. This included even mentioning that you were an employee at Roll Call. I explained that it was just an outlet to share what lessons I was learning in journalism, but that wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t blog about Roll Call while working at Roll Call at all.
When she told me I had to take the post down, I politely refused, saying you can’t unpublish a newspaper story, so I would not unpublish the blog post. Roll Call cut a deal with me that prohibited me from blogging about it from that point on. After talking to blogging expert Mindy McAdams about it, I decided to put my blog on the four-month hiatus.
On my first day here at the Trib, I told my editors about my blog just in case there was some weird blog policy like Roll Call’s. Their response? “We’ll check, but I don’t think it’ll be a problem… Anything to bring traffic to TBO.com!”
Blogging freely on my experience? Bliss! I’m going to make sure to link to my stories in thanks.
But back to blog policies. The extremes between my two internships really got me thinking about what a good blogging policy would be for newspapers.
I did a quick Google blogs search to see what some of the talk about blog policies is and found an interesting post on a blog called Bloggasm.
To sum it up, the blogger sent an e-mail survey out to 250 newspaper editors to get their opinions on whether they would let a writer have a personal blog (on a topic unrelated to his or her beat) without approval from the newspaper. The results weren’t really that surprising:
“Of the 250 surveyed, 39 responded. Twenty-two — 56% — said they wouldn’t mind if writers blogged on non-beat issues without obtaining permission. The remaining 17 — 44% — either required disclosure of the blog, issued caveats over what subjects couldn’t be covered, or had outright bans on having personal blogs at all.”
Bloggasm decided to conduct the survey because of two bloggers who were fired from their jobs in journalism for not informing the news organizations of their blogs. The first was accused of bringing “discredit to the newsroom” and the second for was fired for having a blog, period (although CNN said the controversial content of his blog contributed to it as well).
Obviously I love blogging and think a policy that would prohibit them completely is silly (paranoia, anyone?). Also, it wouldn’t do much to culture an open discussion about it in the newsroom, as McAdams explained in a story in the American Journalism Review.
“The lack of clear policies has helped create ‘a kind of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ mentality’ among journalists thinking of starting blogs, says Mindy McAdams, Knight Chair of Journalism at the University of Florida and a new-media consultant for journalism outlets.
If guidelines on personal blogging aren’t clear, McAdams says, journalists are unlikely to approach their editors prior to starting a blog because of a fear that they will be told they aren’t allowed to do so. If they don’t ask, they can start a blog and rely on their own judgment and integrity to determine whether what they are doing crosses any lines, McAdams says.”
I’m actually in favor of alerting your news organization to personal blogs and their content. Otherwise you end up with reporters with blogs that some people might deem inappropriate or perhaps reveal bias. Bloggasm’s response from Vickie Holbrook, managing editor for the Idaho Press-Tribune, really put it quite nicely:
“A reporter can’t turn his credibility on or off as he enters and leaves the newspaper office,” she wrote. “So where do you draw the line on what’s OK and what’s not?…Politics would not be acceptable. Gardening would be.”
Herein lies the problem. Deus Ex Malcontent blogger Chez Pazienza who was fired from CNN shows us a perfect example in the post stating his case after he was fired:
“Like anyone who considers him or herself a respectable news professional, whatever my personal opinions were, they were checked at the door when I walked into work.”
Pazienza is overlooking a small (or incredibly large) detail. Journalism is not a job that can be turned on and off. You can’t check it at the door. When you’re a journalist, you live, eat, breath, sleep your profession because you have to. The truth is that Holbrook is right. There are topics that journalists cannot blog about.
As journalists, we are called to adhere to the Society of Professional Journalists’s Code of Ethics. Let us all remember that this includes a line stating journalists must “remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.” Does blogging fit into that context? Yes.
I’ve said this before, but to refresh everyone’s mind on the importance of consistency in our lives as journalists, remember…
“We eat, sleep and breathe journalism, because it’s not a 9-5 job. It’s a lifestyle. If you’re not living it, then this isn’t the industry for you.”
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9 Comments, Comment or Ping
Simon Owens
Hey, I’m the author of the Bloggasm survey. Just wanted to drop a comment to let you know I enjoyed your post. Take care,
–simon
Jun 14th, 2008
Hilary
Thank you for posting about the ethics of journalism and not being able to turn it on and off.
I feel like journalists who blog their opinions about their beats are delusional.
If you feel like the cause is greater than journalism, that’s an issue for your own conscience. But people should realize that if that’s the judgment you make, it’s a judgment you need to be willing to get fired for.
Jun 14th, 2008
Andrew
Great post. I’ve always resented being given an hourly schedule since it feels like there’s a time when you’re supposed to turn off being a journalist.
Jun 15th, 2008
Chez
Jessica — did I just get a scolding lecture on journalistic ethics from a college student? An editor at the Independent Florida Alligator? Actually, wait, don’t answer that; of course I did.
Look, you’re obviously a very intelligent person, and one whose heart and head are certainly in the right place, but your argument betrays your age and lack of real-world experience. It’s easy to make pretentious claims of how journalism is the great endeavor and a 24/7 job, and to cite wonkish J-school literati to bolster your statements at this stage in your life and career. But until you’ve spent years in a newsroom — dealt with the harsh realities of being a working journalist, realities that can force you to sometimes compromise your deservedly cherished ethics if you’d like to keep your job — your manifesto is, quite literally, all academic. The fact is this: whether you believe that a true journalist lives and breathes news and therefore shouldn’t expect to have a “life” outside the job, or that a true journalist must keep his or her opinion absolutely neutral at all times (an impossible goal, and therefore one that’s naive to even suggest), doesn’t matter when your only experience is as a student and an intern and your views have never been put to the test. Until they are, you’re basically talking in abstracts, as college kids (and, unfortunately, all too often, their professors) tend to do.
Bottom line, though: your dedication, idealism and unwillingness to budge on your convictions — to say nothing of the zeal with which you audaciously criticize those who have a hell of a lot more experience than you — are all admirable.
But come talk to me in ten years.
Jun 24th, 2008
Jessica DaSilva
Chez,
I’m sorry if you interpreted this blog post as a lecture. It wasn’t intended to be taken that way.
Still, I stand by my argument. It’s not that I think journalists can’t have opinions outside the newsroom. I’m sure all journalists discuss their opinions with friends outside work, but I think there is something different between having a conversation among a few people and publicly publishing controversial opinions on the Internet.
There is a difference between having a personal life and having a blog. When you post your personal life on the Internet, it has the potential to reach millions of people – including the community you’re serving. You can’t assume only your friends will see.
I realize my argument is backed by academics, but yours is based solely on the fact that I am young and inexperienced.
Yes, I am young. Yes, I am inexperienced. However, I know many journalists (outside of my professors) who are much older, much more experienced and hold true to the same principles that I have professed.
One of my mentors is Richard Benedetto who covered the White House for USA Today for about 20 years. He covered Reagan to George W. Bush. To this day, he does not discuss his political stances or opinions with anyone, and his wife backed that claim up. He’s almost 70 years old.
So long as there are people like Richard who hold themselves to high principles and set an example for the rest of us (no matter how young or old), I won’t accept age and experience as fair excuses.
Jun 24th, 2008
Chez
You’re citing USA Today as a defense of quality journalism? Wow. That’s a big heaping helping of irony. Quite a few people consider USA Today to be a not-so-shining example of everything that’s wrong with modern journalism and the short attention spans it’s now forced to cater to, at the expense of genuine reflection and context.
I admit that I’m more than a little burned out on the business as a whole (and that’s what it is, unfortunately, a business). But I think you’re somewhat naive in your viewpoints, regardless. I certainly don’t mean this to be an insult; you really are a very smart young woman.
There are a couple of points that I think you’re missing.
First of all, and most noteworthy, is that you’re expressing an opinion online right now, yet you see no problem with doing so — only because you believe your opinion to run concurrent with the values necessary to be a good newsperson. The trouble is, it’s still an opinion — your opinion. I actually happen to believe, despite the fact that I was willing and able to check my biases while in the office (and have them checked for me by the system itself), that it wasn’t always necessary. It ISN’T necessary. Edward R. Murrow offered his opinion on the air almost constantly — on many of the stories he covered — and I seriously doubt you’d be ready to dismiss his professional credentials. He did this because part of the job of a newsperson is to bring truth to power, and occasionally objectivity stands anathema to that end. You must keep an open mind as a journalist, true — but those tough questions you have to be ready to ask are always based on a bias that you’re harboring somewhere; one that, if nothing else, is telling you that you’re probably being lied to by somebody. Think about it: in an effort to remain (supposedly) unbiased, the mainstream media failed at every turn during the lead-up to the Iraq war, and what was worse — the insult to injury — is that there were STILL people out there deriding them as the so-called liberal media, merely to score political points.
Secondly, and this is something I’ve written about ad nauseam over the past few months, like it or not, technology is changing the entire definition of journalism and what it means to be a journalist. The rules are being rewritten. I’m more than happy to admit that it may have been slightly untoward of me to write about the God-awful state of the news business (although, if you read carefully you know that I never revealed my place of work nor wrote specifically about my day-to-day duties) while drawing a paycheck from CNN. But I can’t help but wonder if you’re not holding tried-and-true corporate news entities in far too high a regard — as I’d expect you to at this stage of your career. The reality is that I feel more like a journalist now — writing and researching my own website, writing for magazines, contributing to the Huffington Post and so on — than I did during my last few years in Capital J Media (and this is coming from someone who has two Emmys and 16 years of broadcast news experience). As you know, because you’re utilizing it right now, the internet has allowed almost anyone to have a voice, which is of course a good thing and a bad thing. In my case, I believed that I WAS being a journalist 24/7 — living and breathing it, as you say — by doing my job at CNN and writing almost constantly about issues I considered important for my own site in my spare time. In other words, just because I wasn’t doing it for CNN, didn’t mean I wasn’t practicing journalism. Quite the opposite, in fact.
As I said, you’re smart, and your ideals are, in fact, quite noble. As pithy as my last closing comment was meant to be, I actually do hope you manage to hold onto them. But I really think you may be in for more than a few rude awakenings on your way to your goal.
Either way, I wish you luck.
Jun 24th, 2008
Jessica DaSilva
Chez, I get where you’re coming from. It makes a lot more sense when you put it that way. And for the most part, I agree with you.
When journalists reach a certain level of expertise in a subject, it only makes sense to use them like a source. After all, by that point, they’re experts on the subject.
When it comes down to it, my main concern is really the issue of journalists blogging about their beats. I just think it can get really sticky.
I don’t necessarily support a full censoring of journalists’ opinions in general, but they should keep themselves in check when it comes to opinions on what they report and sensitive topics, such as politics. If in doubt about a blog topic, I think it’s safe to say a journalist should either ask his or her boss or assume it’s a bad idea.
Also, I think your blog is a way better gig than being a producer on CNN. Maybe I’m a print snob, but TV news just kind of rubs me the wrong way. It seems hard to NOT be concerned about what will sell. But I know you know better than I do on this topic (and that all news organizations can be just as guilty of that), so I’ll stop there.
As for USA Today – I wasn’t using the newspaper to corroborate my argument so much as I was using a personal friend and mentor. Where he worked doesn’t make much of a difference to me. I only mentioned it to identify him. It’s his journalistic integrity that I was trying to draw attention to. As a student, knowing there are journalists like him make me want to hold on to my naïve ideals for the industry and makes me think I can.
Finally, thanks for making me think. I wish I had readers who did that way more often.
Jun 25th, 2008
ASKlein
I’d be curious to hear both of your opinions on the recent dust up involving WaPo heavyweights Broder and Woodward getting criticized for accepting big-payload speaking engagements. While pseudo-lobbying is not the same as blogging, the issues surrounding the above argument (well, one of many issues) involves conflicts of interest: when is it OK to do your own thing? When must you subjugate yourself to the masthead? And, to be a little glib here, you have the choice to work for a media outlet—thus, you choose to follow its rules or (indirectly) choose to be fired. DaSilva’s paper doesn’t seem to mind; so, if one wants to blog and still be a (J)ournalist, one should apply there and not to CNN, it seems.
I highly doubt a case of a reporter fired for blogging could make it to the Supreme Court. That’s not to say I don’t ultimately agree with the bloggers, but as long as there are companies there is going to be company policy governing what you wear and where you write.
Jun 25th, 2008
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