The other day, Erwin of Inq7.net called me up for a quick interview which was just published here. This topic was brought about during our meeting with Al (Sembrano) McCaw with regards to his intent in filing a libel case against Gail. I wanted to do a follow-up on that but I never got to publish that entry until I’ve exhausted all possible ways to have both parties agree on something.
Going forward to Erwin’s article in Inq7.net entitled “Should Filipino bloggers follow ethics in journalism?”, this topic has been discussed in many fora time and time again but in the context of the Philippine blogosphere we’re still young to even consider it.
I might partially agree with Rachel Khan when she said bloggers should at least follow certain guidelines in journalism of truth-telling, impartiality, and fairness but only if the blog is doing pure reportage. Otherwise, expect the blogger to be highly opinionated and partial because it’s personal arena and we’re all entitled to express our thoughts.
Journalists on the other hand are guided bound by the journalistic code of ethics and standards. If we say that blogging has evolved and already gone mainstream and they should be covered under the same standards is like requiring all YouTube videos go thru MTRCB ratings before they’re uploaded.
Again, I’d stress that blogging became so popular because there were no hard rules at all. We could even go back to the age-old issue on what is or what is not a real blog. At the end of the day, the whole social media (which includes blogs) evens out and self-regulates — when you practice these standards/ethics, you get the respect and credibility on what you’re doing; if you exploit it, you’ll loose readership.
Lance Dutson is not only NOT a journalist, he’s actually only barely human.
http://bangorreports.blogspot.com/