May 07, 2005

The Elements Of Journalism And Weblog Ethics

The Big-Thinking Picture

Over in another thread, a pseudonymous commenter expressed their views as to whether or not, or to what degree, we manage to live up to our professed editorial policies on this site.

Without digressing into the specifics of that other thread, and in order to fulfill our promise to said commenter (which we sent privately via email), we're opting to bump their views of our editorial behavior into an item of its own, so that they can be fully aired and discussed by anyone who wishes to discuss the matter.

(And, in fact, where the criticisms make direct and specific mention of the topic of that other thread, we will not be respinding here. Our aim in this post is to open a discussion of the principles we've outlined and for which we strive.)

In our own remarks here, the bits which appear in bold type are quotes taken directly from the above-linked reader comment, followed by our own responses to each issue. It will be noted that the material we've pulled from his or her remarks is not verbatim -- but it doesn't need to be since the original comment is easily referenced via the link in the opening paragraph of this post.

Journalism's first obligation is to the truth. -- b!X has done a good job on this one, but the truth is a slippery little thing and he certainly tends to lean on the reporting of others pulled into the context of his choosing.

What we personally find ironic in this one is that we tend, on the whole, to do more original reporting from around town than the typical blog. Which should not be taken as a dismissal on our part of the typical blog, because we don't somehow consider them lesser entities.

But we did want to point out that traditionally, this site has been a combination of the typical blog approach of commenting upon reporting by other sources and original reporting of our own. Whether or not the mix is useful enough is something for which your subjective mileage may vary.

Its first loyalty is to citizens. -- Good job on this one as long as the citizenry only includes people who agree with the editorial spin included in his choice of topics, links and posts.

Having a loyalty to citizens doesn't mean reflecting the views of each and every citizen. Rather, it means a loyalty to the need for citizens to have access to as many different sources of information and viewpoints as possible. That dynamic, admittedly, makes the assumption that citizens are self-responsible enough to make use of more than one source of information.

If anyone is reading this site without the context provided by other sources, that's a deficiency on their part, not on ours. What it means to have a loyalty to citizens is to have a loyalty to playing some small part in the larger media processes which citizens need to make sense of their world. But that only happens within a greater context, not by taking any single media source on its own.

Its essence is a discipline of verification. -- The level of verification is the question. If you are pre-disposed to believe something it takes a lot less “verification” to alleviate doubts and bouts of conscience.

Verification is also a continuum and a process that occurs over time. One of the mistakes people make when thinking about traditional forms of media is becoming accustomed to the false belief that any single article is the whole story, rather than just a snapshot of an evolving story at that moment in time. The notion of verification is part of that story-over-time process. We'll return to that concept in our response to a later bit.

It must serve as an independent monitor of power. -- To report what the powers are up to is one thing, to interpret what they are up to is entirely different.

On this, we simply disagree. In the main, we reject the notion that the press' job is to issue "he said/she said" reports on events and what the subjects of those events have to say about them. It's also the press' responsibility to try to determine why he said one thing and she said another. Sometimes that's done through actual source material which backs it up, and sometimes it's done through educated guessing.

Which glances into the reporting/commentary issue, but that will come up in a little bit and we'll address it then.

It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise. -- b!X has done a great job at this and the discussion on this forum is admirable, passionate and usually takes place at a high level of intelligence. The city is better off with the one true’s opinion, but it is important to recognize it as ONE opinion.

With that last, we wholeheartedly agree. In point of fact, it goes directly to the point we made earlier about the citiznery having their own responsibility to not (mis)take any single person's word as scripture. We've never made any pretense that ours was the only opinion -- we've simply stood fast when we believed our opinion happened to be the correct one.

It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant. -- Making the significant interesting and relevant is a great goal as long as you stick to the other elements in this list. The problem is when one person is deciding what is significant, often they will make the insignificant seem significant by making it interesting ... and the irrelevant appear relevant.

Here we feel that the remark is making an error in scope. To some degree, it is journalism when taken as a whole which needs to "make the significant interesting and relevant", not merely any single person performing acts of journalism.

More than that, however, is the fact that the entire rationale behind blogs is that they are about those things which their authors find to be significant, interesting, and relevant. The point is that determining what is significant, interesting, and relevant no longer is the exclusive purview of the gatekeeper press, but has now also become the playing field for, well, anyone who takes the time to write.

This also circles back, again, to the notion of citizens not self-limiting their intake of news and media. We have ever pretended that this site is anything other than what we subjectively and personally find to be significant, interesting, and relevant.

It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional. -- See above on this but in short this says to keep it fair and balanced if it’s news. Opinion is a whole other thing.

Actually, being comprehensive and proportional has nothing to do with being fair and balanced, and again this has to do with the issue of citizens not being self-limiting in their news intake. Citizens themselves have a responsibility to ensure that their media diet is comprehensive and proportional. Again: It isn't our fault if someone out there takes the material on our site as the sole component of the map to understanding their world.

Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience. -- There is a clear difference between exercising your personal conscience and spewing your personal opinion.

Whether we're speaking of conscience or opinion, the role of the press is (or should be) not merely to report the events of the world, but to be a collection of many and different avenues towards making sense out of those events. To do that, people performing acts of journalism need to be free to engage their own sense of that meaning. And, again, people making use of acts of journalism need to engage with a wide and varied spectrum of such acts, from a wide and varied assortment of sources.

Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true. -- He sets a standard for truth and if it were published and acknowledged it would make the whole site a lot more honest. The problem is, b!X has become so good at making opinion look like fact and associating facts in such a way that the logical interpretation of the facts results in a conclusion that matches his opinion.

First of all, creating a logical interpretation of the facts, we have always thought, is pretty much the very definition of having an informed opinion on something. So we admit to being rather entirely bewildered by that last bit.

Beyond that, however, we state for the record that, in fact, we have always published as fact only that which we believed to be true. And we've corrected things which later turned out not to be true. But we'll come back to that last point because it's relevant to something later.

If material exists online, link to it when you reference it. -- Technicality and b!X is great at those.

It's actually far, far more than some mere technicality. It's a critical aspect of just why we can get away with combining reporting with opinion. Mouthing off one's opinion in a vacuum is what might create the impression that we were trying to pass off opinion as fact. But supplying links or other access to source material of various kinds is what allows the reader to establish how they feel about our own opinion.

When the reader themselves can access the material we use to form our own opinion, it inherently frees us up to express that opinion, because they can check for themselves the facts we used to come to our opinion. This isn't a technicaloty, it's a central premise of how this all works.

Publicly correct any misinformation. -- This would require an objective editor. That is not what we have here and so instead we are required to take the opinion for what it is and compare to other sources.

This is simply inaccurate. Or, if you prefer, misinformation. We have, in fact, on many occassions published corrections, and typically we do so both by adding an update to the original item containing the misinformation and publishing an entirely new item on the correction. Corrections don't require an objective editor. They simply require a person who makes the deliberate choice to abide by this policy.

Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry. -- See above on technicality.

This also is far from a mere technicality and instead is critical to how all of this works. It's about transparency. By adhereing to this policy, the reader knows that we never run away from anything we've posted by engaging in the cowardly act of simply tossing it down the memory hole. If ever something needs to be changed (or, in fact, corrected), the original material remains published on the site for all to see, but with a strikethrough to make it clear it is no longer valid.

This policy exists to ensure that the reader always will be aware when we've made a mistake or changed the substance of something we've published, by making sure that the original material remains online.

Again, these alleged technicalities are anything but. They are centrally crucial to the entire experiment here.

Disclose any conflict of interest. -- This one is avoided as b!X does not seem to benefit from anything he writes and he is very honorable about this whole thing.

Well, we try.

Note questionable and biased sources. -- He does his best on this, but the stilted commentary that often accompanies his use of source material overshadows his ability to appropriately judge the sources of his information as well as the fact that he mostly borrows from other reports rather than doing his own research.

Here we can only repeat what we said earlier. Compared to the typical weblog, we engage in far more original reporting. While it may be true, were someone to do a statistical breakdown, that "most" of the content here somehow is based upon material from elsewhere (which is the typical approach for blogs), the fact that we've routinely engaged in original reporting (meetings of the Public Involvement Task Force, research into the workings of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, etc.) seems, to us anyway, to somewhat undercut the above argument.

To reiterate, this post was inspired by a reader comment on another thread. Because said reader took a rather lengthy and deliberative amout of time to raise these issues, we felt it sensible to give them a post and thread of their own.

So, as ever, and after our own lengthy and deliberative contribution, we turn the discussion over to our readers for whatever they might have to add to the mix.

Posted at 01:45 AM | PermalinkComments (48) | TrackBacks (1)
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Comments (48)

  1. Jack Peek on 07 May 2005

    First of all, let's get this out right away, I RESPECT you for your talents in writing, and your allowing me to try point out an issue of community safety. One day I think you will see I mean no harm by my approach...it come's with the territory of protecting your family.

    Thank's..Jack Peek

  2. tom on 07 May 2005

    Using the protection of the family as a defense for being a fear mongering flag waving protectionist with leanings towards jack booted knee jerk reactions is a twisted use case for protecting a family.

    I have a family as well. Because of nutclusters like you I have to work extra hard to make sure my family has the chance to live in an American with freedom and liberty to all with justice applied equaly with out the taint of enforcable favoritsm becuase of race, creed, color or gender.

    Which has nothing to do with this most amazing thread of self examination bix has posted up.

    Lets keep on topic there Mr Peek.

    -tom

  3. Jack Peek on 07 May 2005

    Well TOM...WHEN ARE YOU CALLING CASCADIA HEALTHCARE?


    The PC CRAP OF THIS TOWN SUCKS...PDC WAS THE THREAD...WHAT PDC DID TO MY NEIGHBORHOOD NEEDED TO BE FIXED...AND THAT IS A FACT....AND AS USUAL...CALLING NAMES BEHIND THE OLD COMPUTOR IS ABOUT THE PROGRESSIVE STYLE.

    THE ISSUE IS WHAT IS THE REAL JOB OF AN ELECTED OFFICAL....SAVING LIFES COMES FIRST YOU SO-.

  4. Jack Peek on 07 May 2005

    I have to work extra hard to make sure my family has the chance to live in an American ....

    WOW TOMMY! We have something in common, I have to work extra hard so slimeball nutcase/mentally ill "progressives" (GOD I HATE THE USE OF THIS WORD) You people have taken us back too near the times when the ISLAMIC TERRIOSTS of then are rising again today, worst of all your aiding and abetting them, by allowing them and others to come accross our borders like they damn well own the place.

    Tolerence....ooooohhhh tolerence, for them, my GOD, We must protect the criminally insane at all costs, as long as they, when allowed 90 minutes of "unsupervised" walks past my kids grade school..HELL, THAT'S OK WITH YOU, ISN'T IT?. This little difference of my politics and yours will cost us dearly in the near future...my job will be to see it cost's you before it costs me. Was that a threat??? YOU BET IT WAS! IN 08 your going so far to the minority of politics in power...WE WILL NEED A SPACE TELESCOPE TO FIND ANY OF YOU.

    In the mean time.......I HOPE, in all honesty Mr..Leonard stops PDC in it's tracks...it really is out of control.

  5. The One True b!X on 07 May 2005

    Hey Jack, I have news for you. This thread isn't about PDC.

  6. The One True b!X on 07 May 2005

    Seriously. This thread exists for a very specific and narrow purpose. This site isn't a general interest bulletin board. If you're going to continue with this (a subject which, I swear just within the past two days, you said you were giving up on), at least do it in a thread that's marginally relevant, and not this one.

  7. William on 07 May 2005

    Note questionable and biased sources. -- He does his best on this, but the stilted commentary that often accompanies his use of source material overshadows his ability to appropriately judge the sources of his information as well as the fact that he mostly borrows from other reports rather than doing his own research.

    Hold on. Even full-time, fully-paid journalists derive material from sources other than their own publication house. The AP, with far more resources at its disposal than b!X, sometimes borrows from whatever news org first broke a story. This is reality. This does not diminish the validity of b!X's work.

    Some things cannot be verified independently, and must be trusted. Other things, which could be verified but would take a fair amount of time to confirm, ring true and needn't be verified so long as they're cited--you can determine for yourself if they're accurate or not. The whole of humanity, in fact, has become as developed as it has because of the work of people before us.

  8. tom on 07 May 2005

    In many things there is the notion of a "Best Effort". What it means is that given the resources at hand the best effort was made to assure the job was done.

    In b!X's case I very very rarely feel hes has not done , at the least, a "Best Effort and more often an "Above and Beyond". He is often at a meeting, looking into the backstory or digging thru the archives to make a post more than just a "I heard this and this from so and so".

    Just my 2cents

  9. tim on 07 May 2005

    Whether blogs are journalism is a blistering topic these days. It's pretty clear (to me) that blogs aren't journalism, simply because they are free to be so many things beyond (and including) straight newsroom reporting. That doesn't make blogs less, it makes them more.

    The nightly local news (fox) brings me reports of bears getting stuck in trees -- in Minnesota! The OregonLive web site is unreadable. What b!x is doing, along with thousands of others, is bringing individual voices back into the conversation. It's our frickin' community, why should corporations control the conversation (especially when they suck at it)? Blogs are not designed to be your local paper, they are designed to be conversations -- you can and should jump among them, picking up bits and pieces as you go. You should not trust them implicitly, for the same reasons you shouldn't trust every hack with a byline. How many trusted "journalists" have been nailed for plagiarism and worse offenses of late?

    Trust should be something that you earn. Not something that comes with a fat wallet.

    As for "fair and balanced"? (You know we're in trouble when everyone is going around repeating FoxCo drek.) Stories and issues are not designed to be fair. Stories are about something that has happened. In the process of telling that story, you want to do your research, get your facts straight. This is called accuracy, and there is nothing "fair" or "balanced" about it. FnB is a trick used by TV network split-screen shows to incite invective.

    If you're waiting for some holy journalist to come down from the mountain with the whole honest 100% accurate truth, laid out for you on a silver platter, well my friend, you're gonna be waiting a long time.

    For my part, b!x (and many other bloggers) is reinjecting some moxie back into local news scene. I am excited to see what happens in the future, because in these hypermediated days we need more than ever to wrench back control from the corporations that have run roughshod over our communities and reconnect with each other.

    b!x, keep it up buddy. you are the good fight.

  10. Jack Peek on 07 May 2005

    Hey ..once again, Your writing talents and patience for real tolerence unlike a few others is amazing.

    The point of the thread is good Journalism and WEBLOG ETHICS!


    Just a few days ago I read how many people blog, all I can say here, is the rules seem to made up as we go along.

    Its your house...I'll keep trying to act as a guest.

    But since this is a ethical learning lesson "professor",may I ask this question?

    Without going back to Leonard's original post on PDC and pasting the exact words...'he asked people to comment on things to revamp PDC, just like he asked for input on the JTTF.. .OK...I said "dont allow PDC to finance "criminally insane group homes undercover of "low income housing" ...come on B!X, they did that, I did a FOIA request and found that information.

    OK..it's the issue no one wants to talk about, but by your good standards ,IT'S A BALDFACE LIE ,an we the taxpayer need the honest truth, even if legally by all standards of lawyereze,...ITS NOT HONEST ,much less a good use of taxpayer money when it's says "high risk difficult to place clients!"


    Using the standards I think you would use, I think you would have challenged the wording and what at least I think is "crap' for use of your's and my dollars....BOTH, hard earned (Ok, my best respectful question...HOPE YOU WILL REPLY THE SAME.

  11. myrln on 07 May 2005

    Save for the pique-a-bouche commentary, it's rewarding to see how many people understand that Bix does a fine and fair job in delivering information that in toto provides its own meaning. The meaning is not imposed by Communique but derives from the info given. If that meaning is problematic for some involved, well, then those folks have to look at what they're doing and see how they have contributed to or are the problem. And importantly, they have the right to say aye-yea-or-no right here in the comments. Do you think for a moment the established media allows that? Unh-uh. They pick and choose whose pov gets aired or printed. That's the real beauty of blog journalism: it is a transparent democracy. Everyone can have a say. Even Jack, who has real concerns but voices them in unrelated places. (See, Jack, I acknowledge your concerns. Blogs allow the give and take.) When the honesty of the Communique is questioned (slantedly, to be sure, by someone with an agenda that is discomforted by the Communique's honesty), it's truly heartening to see so many stand up and call the bs exactly what it is. Bravo to all who won't let a site that delivers honestly be defamed. And finally, those who are unhappy with how Communique functions have other freely accessible rights: they can stop reading Communique or/and start their own blog. Easy, huh?

  12. thinkbigPDX on 07 May 2005

    First, I would like to thank the one true for making this a thread of its own because I think the whole blogging world and those of us who read them need to be a part of this conversation. The basic question is about journalism vs. editorial. When I read the New York Times or watch CNN I want news/journalism. When I read Editorial Columns, watch the daily show or Real Time, I want editorial/entertainment. The key is not to mix the two and this is something that the foundation of our nation depends on and the very thing that the right to a free press is supposed to protect. But, the question of where a Blog belongs on this continuum is one that needs to be answered. It is not enough to claim, as B!X does in his response, that it is up to the reader to recognize what is real and what is not, what is opinion and what is news, what is fact and what is interpretation of certain facts. If you follow this logic to its reasonable conclusion you end up with many sources of propaganda and no sources of news. If everyone is free to place the onus on the recipient of the message to interpret its meaning and relevance and basis in fact, then why can’t cigarette companies advertise on the back of milk cartons that get distributed to schools for the kid’s lunches? Why do we have the very rules and ethics of Journalism that we are discussing? The reason is that what we write when we are in a position of authority, as B!X is given that all of city hall is on his site first thing each morning (and for hard working Randy Leonard that morning starts at 12:01am), has the ability to influence. This power is something that needs to be respected or taken away.
    All the readers who thought Clevenger should not be writing to B!X at all, much less on his blog are letting the world know that they believe the power should be taken away, that real people with real power and influence should continue to ignore the blogosphere and stick to the real news outlets. They are saying that blogs do not have a place in the real world, that they are underground and should stay there. They are saying that the editors are not real journalists and that while their opinions might provide some level of entertainment, they should not be taken seriously. With this, I strongly disagree.
    It seems that by contacting B!X in the first place, as an agent of OPUS, employed to work the press as “PR Flacks” are paid to do, Clevenger was actually recognizing the influence of a specific publication (in this case a blog) and reaching out the editor/writer as he would if he were contacting any other press outlet. What resulted was a collision of two worlds that in my opinion are destined to merge—traditional journalism and Blogs.
    If this result is representative of these interactions and no one does anything to clarify the rules of engagement, the world of real journalism will continue to look down its nose at the bloggers and the more serious bloggers will keep hammering away at their keyboards, anxiously awaiting that ringing of the phone that carries an offer of employment with a “real media outlet.” If this cycle continues, we will watch people like B!X get sucked into the swirl and spin of PR, corporate press and all that comes with it. If the Bloggers and the world of “real media” could follow the same rules in the same ways, then the authority of a well written, well researched blog would match the authority of a real media outlet on the same topic and we could start calling them traditional media outlets vs. new media outlets, not real vs. blogs. I will be hopeful and start the name change now as I firmly believe that this change in the media world will be the best way to fight the corporate control of the news and keep some news sources truly “free” press outlets.
    Going back to the “off the record” vs. “on the record” conversation and the resulting personal attacks in both directions, I have to say that I do not think there was any impropriety on clevenger’s part. In PR the goal is to shape a story. The reporters that a PR person works with know this and can ask questions about conflicts of interest etc at will. It is not at all unusual for an “off the record” conversation to be used to feel out a reporter and to work through the early stages of a relationship. This is not dishonest or inappropriate; it is how things are done in the traditional media world. B!X’s reaction to this and his discomfort with the conversation speaks more to his inexperience with PR people and being treated as a traditional media outlet/person of influence than anything else and is a perfect example of why these two worlds need to get on the same page when it comes to these rules.
    After that preamble, I will go through the rules in the same order that B!X did, but first I must point out that in keeping with his habit of skewing stories to fit his needs, views and opinions rather than being objective, he left out the rule of journalism that he has violated the most blatantly. For most readers, this would go unnoticed and they would think that on the whole B!X has followed his own ethics/principles of journalism and further come to the conclusion that he has defended himself and his site from an unwarranted attack by a small time self proclaimed big thinker.
    However, I must ask B!X to please explain for all of us why he left out my question about independence: “Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.—This one is so clear that even Mr. DimWitt must recognize B!X’s failure here when it comes to Clevenger.”
    What happened to this question? Why was it left out of the response? Does leaving this question out help or hurt the one true cause? Are we to believe this is an honest mistake or is there a conspiracy of one behind this omission? Does this omission skew the readers and make them more sympathetic to B!X’s side of this argument or is it immaterial? Are we to think that in B!X’s opinion, this question is not important? Is each and every reader expected to recognize this omission and come to their own conclusion about the answer to this question, but also be expected to give credence to the one true’s answers when it comes to the other questions?
    Frankly it makes me wonder how many other times this same sort of omission has skewed a story, a viewpoint or a reader’s opinion. It brings the credibility of the entire site into question as it is such an obvious, self-serving act of selective reporting, and done with such a natural aplomb that until it is shown to be otherwise, I assume and recommend that all other readers of this site assume that this is the rule, not the exception.

    Honest site? Media Democracy? Now who is responsible for the “BS”????
    B!X???????What the hell man?

    Once we get past this, I will address the rest of your responses.

  13. Elaine of Kalilily on 07 May 2005

    Methinks that thinkbig needs to expand his/her understanding of the intersection of weblogging and journalism. I suggest he/she go over to Jay Rosen's (NYU Journalism Professor) PressThink amd check out his weblog post about "What's Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism", which includes the following items (which pretty much take the air out of thinkbig's big thoughts).

    5.) Whereas an item of news in a newspaper or broadcast seeks to add itself to the public record, an entry posted in a weblog engages the public record, because it pulls bits and pieces from it through the device of linking. In journalism the regular way, we imagine the public record accumulating with each day's news-- becoming longer. In journalism the weblog way, we imagine the public record "tightening," its web becoming stronger, as links promotes linking, which produces more links.

    6.) A weblog can “work” journalistically—it can be sustainable, enjoyable, meaningful, valuable, worth doing, and worth it to other people —if it reaches 50 or 100 or 160 souls who like it, use it, and communicate through it. Whereas in journalism the traditional way, such a small response would be seen as a failure, in journalism the weblog way the intensity of a small response can spell success.

    7.) A weblog is like a column in a newspaper or magazine, sort of, but whereas a column written by twelve people makes little sense and wouldn’t work, a weblog written by twelve people makes perfect sense and does work.

    8.) In journalism prior to the weblog, the journalist had an editor and the editor represented the reader. In journalism after the weblog, the journalists has (writerly) readers, and the readers represent an editor.

    9.) In journalism classically understood, information flows from the press to the public. In the weblog world as it is coming to be understood, information flows from the public to the press.

    There's more, of course, but this comment is long enough.

    You also might like to take a look at Rosen's list of "What's Conservative About the Weblog Form of Journalism".

    I take you on at this point, thinkbig, not because of any familial loyalty, but rather because I'm a prolific blogger myself, dedicated to encouraging those who believe that they already think big to learn to think even bigger.

  14. The One True b!X on 07 May 2005

    Only a couple points for now.

    The key is not to mix the two and this is something that the foundation of our nation depends on and the very thing that the right to a free press is supposed to protect.

    This is, well, just silly. Nothing about the need to protect a free press was about keeping fact and opinion separate. Do you not recall how much of the early press in this country was comprised of pamphleteers and authors of broadsides, who were very much right in the middle of being opinionated in their take on the news and events of the day? It was within that very context that the Framers ended up including a Frst Amendment protection of speech and the press. So the idea that not mixing the two was the "very thing ... a free press is suppsoed to protect" simply doesn't stand up.

    Going back to the “off the record” vs. “on the record” conversation and the resulting personal attacks in both directions, I have to say that I do not think there was any impropriety on clevenger’s part. In PR the goal is to shape a story.

    I never claimed there was impropriety. I said there was a switcheroo, and I further explained the experience of feeling like I was being manipulated. It's one thing to try to shape the story, it's another thing when you try to snow somebody, which was the experience I had, and one which other PR professionals I've talked to about it recognize for what it was.

    As for the skipped part, there were two reasons, and they are contained already in the original post to begin with, but apparently I will have to reiterate them: First, I made it very clear that any bit that was directly relevant to the Clevenger-specific thread was not going to be addressed by me here, because I was deliberately trying to avoid turning this thread into a rehash of the last one. Second, I made it clear that anything that was left out was not left out in an attempt to hide it, and that would be obviou to any reader by the fact that I expressly -- twice, in fact, once at the start and once at the end -- linked directly to your original comment, and said explicitly that doing so would enable the reader to see what I included in this post and what I didn't.

    So I understand you want that question answered, and I'll come back to it. But don't you dare act like I was trying to bury it, because I specifically and intentionally in this post explained that my policy was for this post, specifically and intentionally linked directly to your original comment, and specifically and deliberately did so to make it easy for readers to compare.

  15. The One True b!X on 07 May 2005

    Oh, I forgot the bit about responsibility. The point I was trying to make (successfully or otherwise) was that it's a responsibility that's shared between the writer and the reader. If a reader has the expectation that they will be spoon-fed all relevant context in any single article in any medium, then they don't understand what it means to be literate in the 21st century. If a reader takes any single source in vacuum, rather than as part of a larger continuum and context of sources, there's nothing the writer can do about that.

  16. Jack Peek on 07 May 2005

    Good citizens are the riches of a city. - C.E.S. Wood


    Myrin...We both want the same things, I have learned alot, and I have much more to learn about written communication.

    I would bet if I invited you and B!X and others who have attacked me for my lack of political correctness in a PC city, to sit here on my porch and vist a couple of hours about what we want from what we have left in our lifetime.......We want pretty much the same things.

    B!X has a job to do, it is to try to get (sorry, that fair and balanced deal) what most of us want, that being being information that allows us all to make a decision on what the hell is going on. HE SLIPS ON IT SOMETIME.

  17. thinkbigPDX on 07 May 2005

    to Elaine-all those reasons are exactly why the world of traditional journalism and the blogosphere must abide by the same rules and ethics so that the professionals of both can speak the same language and the blogs can be taken as seriously as they deserve to be taken by the media consuming public as a whole. i guess you really are his mom, interesting.

    to B!X-you have yet to answer the question and you remain irreponsible. a link is not enough when you address ever single other point. You are placing a higher value on the points you feel you can make and hiding behind your desire to keep the clevenger thread and this one separate just won't cut it. Forget the clevenger part, forget what you left out of your response to me. Show me and everyone else that you have a good reason to leave out this one point of all the ones you took the time to answer and that this is not the rule on the site, but the exception.

  18. The One True b!X on 07 May 2005

    I find it deeply ironic that you keep accusing me of ignoring things while at the same time you yourself are ignoring things. Not only, in your previous comment, did you ignore the fact that I explicitly stated my reasons for not addressing certain aspects of your comment in the other thread, but in your most recent comment you ignore the fact that I explicitly stated that I would indeed be answering the question you want answered -- once again trying to paint me as ducking or hiding something, when in fact it's quite obvious that I stated I would not be.

  19. The One True b!X on 07 May 2005

    And so, on to the question of independence from those being covered. The first important data point here is that independence does not mean neutrality. Independence does not mean refraining frm having and expressing an opinion or bias when it comes to the outcome of something like the Bridgehead.

    That I have had an opinion and bias in favor of the Beam proposal is a secret so open that it's disqualified frombeing called a secret, and so the reader is entirely free, due to that transparency, to decide whether or not my views of Clevenger are motivated by that bias.

    In fact, where a problem in this regard would arise is if I expressed by opinion of Clevenger and Opus without ever having openly stated by bias towards the Beam proposal. But my views on the developers are all over this site, and so, as I said, readers are free to factor in my bias towards Beam when tey read my views of Clevenger to whatever degree they see fit.

    But anyway, independence does not mean neutrality. Independence means not being beholden to the people being covered -- or, at the very least making it clear that you might be, such as when I regularly posted disclaimers/disclosures about the fact that candidates I was covering in the last local elections had taken out on ads on this site.

    I favored Beam, but if they had been selected and the project went on to stray seriously off-track or suddenly need three times the subsidy, I would have called them on it. That's independence.

    I support the Voter-Owned Elections/Clean Money proposal, but in opposition to its sponsors (who are both readers here and generally supportive of what I do) I think it should be referred to voters rather than voted on by Council, and that the current incumbents should not be able to take advantage of the public campaign fund. That's independence.

    Independence is not about staying out of the fray, avoiding bias, or not having a horse in whatever race is at hand. If I were somehow receiving money from the Beam team, that would not be independent (although if I were, I'd be open and transparent about it, so readers could judge for themselves how it impacted my work). If I had somehow been stiffed on a business deal by Clevenger or Opus, that would not be independent.

    Independence is not about neutrality.

  20. Amanda on 07 May 2005

    Whenever b!X has covered a hearing I've attended, or a topic I know something about, the report on The Communique has been MUCH more accurate than any other media source. It's more complete, and chooses the most pertinent parts both of individual speeches and the event/topic as a whole. It's always clear (at least to me) which parts are of a post are reporting, and which editorial, and I find the mixture/mingling honest, insightful, and helpful.

  21. The One True b!X on 07 May 2005

    One point in the name of transprency. I don't claim that it's never happened that the difference between fact and opinion (or fact and characterization) has ended up being too opaque. Last year, we received a letter from the attorney for a local political analyist for one of our television stations here in Portland, asking us to publish verbatim some comments that commentator had made because when we characterized them we didn't make it clear enough that it was our characterization of them and not a direct reporting of the words he had used.

    It was a fair cop, and we posted a fresh item on the matter, making it clear what was what.

    Just in case anyone attempts to make it sound as if we're claiming to have never gotten it wrong.

  22. William on 07 May 2005

    WTF? thinkbig, not that you've ever addressed me, but you seem to just enjoy being persnickety.

    Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
    I would argue that b!X has. A blogger/journalist often interacts with people, and there's no reason to make those interactions void of smiles/frowns/etc. It's certainly not inappropriate to have met with Clevenger. Nor has b!X any control over whether the guy comes unhinged and sends a positively immature letter (I might have ingored that letter, but...). "Independence" is not some word to be whored around, and I haven't seen any evidence that b!X has violated some ethical standard here.

    all those reasons are exactly why the world of traditional journalism and the blogosphere must abide by the same rules and ethics so that the professionals of both can speak the same language and the blogs can be taken as seriously as they deserve to be taken by the media consuming public as a whole.
    Last time I checked, it wasn't up to you to define a code of conduct for blogs. Many blogs, as with many newspapers, are deservedly dismissed by professionals and public alike. The Communique, on the other hand, is apparently taken seriously; look at the number of readers, and at who is included in the ranks of that readership. On a case by case basis, and appropriately so, the professional and public community will decide which publication is worthy of attention.

    Show me and everyone else that you have a good reason to leave out this one point of all the ones you took the time to answer and that this is not the rule on the site, but the exception.
    Oh please. Fifteen seconds to write that sentence, and half an hour to answer the charge. You are a difficult being, aren't you? I think b!X has scrambled enough to answer your charges, and I hope he completely ignores you on your latest though he probably won't.

    I haven't seen much substance to your accusations, yet you keep them coming. You're not unlike the average troll except that you're an intelligent and well-written individual who's well-enough versed in the art of debate to suck in people who demand a bit more sport to bother with a reply. Which makes me wonder how it is that you can seriously put forth your arguments. Damn I hope b!X ignores you. I'd much rather he spend his time with new items.

  23. William on 07 May 2005

    Oops. b!X posted while I was writing that last bit. Sorry for the redundancy.

  24. Lily on 08 May 2005

    AND, b!X ALWAYS attachs links to relevent articles etc. I find it sadly amusing that "think big" and others are so adamantly against Portland Communique, when the fact of the matter is that the Communqiue is mcsh more fairly balanced than, say, that hideous paper called the Oregonian. I read JAck's blog and Communique daily in order counterbalance the biased twisted version of the "news" in the Whoregonian. We have only to look at the lack of coverage about the Goldschmidt scandal. Or how about the article published covering Don Mazzioti's resignation. Tiny print, the titling namng neither Mazziotti or the PDC. "If it matters to you, it's NOT in the Oregonia".

  25. thinkbigPDX on 08 May 2005

    as the criticism of my comments mount, I would like to calrify in a simple way what I am trying to accomplish in my participation in this thread and in keeping to the points, ignore the insults and name calling (troll etc) that B!X has been so clear do not belong on this site:
    1. Blogs are real journalism and bring a unique view to the world of media and add significant value to the media consuming public. In order to accelerate the transition from underground to mainstream, blog editors should follow the same rules as traditional journalists. In this way, the editors will encourage engagement with the traditional media world and its readers and increase the likelihood of broader readership and the increased authority in the world of media that these independent voices deserve.

    2. While B!X does a very good job of this for the most part (witness his readership numbers and quality—you might say the public has spoken but I know he can do more to lead the charge) on certain subjects he has done himself a disservice by doing more to express his opinion than to report the news. He has gone down a path of personal attacks in a specific instance and lost his objectivity on an entire subject in an effort to fight with a PR person. As much as clevenger should apologize to B!X, B!X should apologize to all his readers for allowing the PDC thread to degenerate and then for creating the thread dedicated to this personal battle in an effort to embarrass Clevenger. This was self-serving and small.

    3. I would like an explanation of why the Independence question was left out. It is not enough to say it was left out as it had no relevance to this thread as it is one of the questions based on his list of ethics. It is not enough to say he wanted to keep the clevenger mess in its own space as the clevenger mess sparked the majority of my questions. I am uncomfortable with the lack of honesty in leaving it out as it could have and I believe would have gone unnoticed by most readers.

    Independence is in fact what B!X says it is in his response, but I do think he should also address the necessity of “independence” as it is used in a meaning closer to objectivity. If personal proximity to a situation leads to more coverage, such as writing about an event or scenario due to a friendship with a person involved in the story, we would all cry out that the coverage was biased due to this friendship and that it lacked “independence.” Why then, when instead of friendship the feeling is animosity, does it become acceptable to skew coverage based on these feelings? Is that not a lack of “independence?” Is there not a responsibility to remain objective and "independent" throughout the coverage of a given story?

  26. The One True b!X on 08 May 2005

    Sorry if you're not satisfied with the explanation for why I left out the independence question, but it is the explanation. I didn't want this thread to simply repeat the Clevenger one, which I believed at the time it would threaten to do if I addressed the specifics of that question.

    Not turning this into a rehash was important to me, because once I saw how well my readers were addressing the issues specific to the Clevenger thread, I made a deliberate decision to not involve myself in that discussion, so that the points people were making would be divorced from the personality conflict, and therefore those points could stand on their own as arguments.

    All of that said, upon your insistence I did come around to the independence question, and this thread hasn't yet devolved into a rehash of the Clevenger item.

    And that brings me around to the notion of independence as objectivity. Unfortunately, the issue of objectivity is one of the most misunderstood, and one of the largest debates going these days, and tackling that one will have to wait until the Red Sox game is over.

  27. The One True b!X on 08 May 2005

    Independence is in fact what B!X says it is in his response, but I do think he should also address the necessity of “independence” as it is used in a meaning closer to objectivity. If personal proximity to a situation leads to more coverage, such as writing about an event or scenario due to a friendship with a person involved in the story, we would all cry out that the coverage was biased due to this friendship and that it lacked “independence.” Why then, when instead of friendship the feeling is animosity, does it become acceptable to skew coverage based on these feelings? Is that not a lack of “independence?” Is there not a responsibility to remain objective and "independent" throughout the coverage of a given story?

    No.

    An answer which of course requires some explanation, heh. First of all, in either of the theoreticals above -- friendship or animosity -- the key is the transparency of the relationship. Being up front about one's views and/or relationship to the subject of a story allows the reader to decide for themselves whether the coverage still stands on its own as useful, or whether they think the coverage should be dismissed because of the firnedship or animosity.

    There's a rather crucial distinction between weblogs and traditional journalism: In the form in which I write, the reporter (or "reporter" depending on how one feels about the whole idea) is not only permitted to be a part of the story being covered but it is generally expected and accepted that this will sometimes be the case when it comes to blogs. It's part of the form, because the form is about someone's subjective experience of whatever it is about which they are writing.

    A relevant example: At one point, I was writing this site at the same time I was an organizer for a group trying to get the City Council to adopt a resolution in protest of the USA PATRIOT Act. Whenever I covered that issue, I made clear my other role. And even after I resigned from that group to focus exclusively on Communique, I still disclosed my oe-time involvement with that group whenever I covered the issue. There's a clear lack of independence there, but the reader had the tools and information required to judge for themselves whether that lack of independence made the coverage useless or not.

    That's the standard I attempt to use on everything. Although it should also be noted that, as near as I can tell, I don't have any friends who are involved in any of the sorts of tbings I cover here, and I don't become friends with any of the people involved in stories I've covered. I'm not here doing this in order to make new friends.

    A sideline, as risky as I think it is, into the Clevenger issue, or at least what it represents, is in order here.

    Whatever the standard processes of interaction between the press and public relations professionals, it's the sort of thing that reporters don't talk about because they aren't allowed to interject themselves into their stories. I'm not bound by that restriction, which is, in the end, an arbitrary one which society is free to revisit as it sees fit.

    For me, those processes and interactions themselves are part of the story, and deserving of being reported. In general, the news-reading public never hears about things like how media people covering a story and PR people trying to shape a story interact. Which inherently means that the news-reading public -- that citizenry to which I am supposed to have loyalty based upon my own professed policies -- is not getting the ful story about how events in their City happen.

    Therefore, if I experience what I believe to be a deeply bizarre (whether or nto its somehow improper) series of interactions with a PR professional involved in a story I cover, then those interactions are fair game. Those "behind the scenes" pieces of how events are played out and stories are shaped is not irrelevant from the standpoint of the citizenry's right to understand how their world works.

    Anyway, independence does not mean objectivity. And even the much-vaunted notion of objectivity is grossly misunderstood, because in the end, when taken as a whole, it's the methods which are meant to be some kind of "objective" and not the reporter or the report.

    I'm going to leave that there for the moment, because it leads into a much larger conversation and this comment has extended far enough for now. But the teaser is this: No single story or article is sufficient to determine whether or not the editorial/reportorial processes are "objective" -- precisely because of the previously-mentioned dynamic which says that any given single story is never The Story, but merely a single and momentary snapshot of what's known about an evolving story at that particular point in time.

  28. Alan DeWitt on 08 May 2005

    tbpdx: "1. Blogs are real journalism and bring a unique view to the world of media and add significant value to the media consuming public. In order to accelerate the transition from underground to mainstream, blog editors should follow the same rules as traditional journalists."

    That's certainly one approach. Assuming one's goal is to "accelerate the transition from underground to mainstream," I'd agree that it's probably the safest and most expedient choice.

    However, it seems to me that b!X is trying to carve out a new journalistic space, here. It's something between the usual categories of blogs and newspapers. As such, it's appropriate for him to reconsider the merits and applications of traditional journalistic rules to his case, taking what's good and applicable and modifying that which is irrelevant or unnecessarily limiting. It's certainly a slower and riskier approach, but the potential reward is a new form of journalism that can stand on its own. (See also RoguePundit.)

    It's a fascinating experiment, and I hope it works. It seems to me that modern industrial journalism doesn't serve the local public affairs niche in a way that serves the citizens very well, and this model has excellent potential for filling that gap.

    b!X: Whatever the standard processes of interaction between the press and public relations professionals, it's the sort of thing that reporters don't talk about because they aren't allowed to interject themselves into their stories. I'm not bound by that restriction [...]"

    In this way, the Communique has gained transparency by breaking the rules of modern industrial journalism. I can see why PR people might be highly annoyed at this exposure, for it seem to me that such transparency dramatically undercuts the usefulness of one of their more effective tools for spinning the story. However, as a citizen I greatly appreciate this added transparency. It seems like a good policy for modern industrial journalism to consider adopting... they'd surely serve the public better if they did.

  29. The One True b!X on 08 May 2005

    For what it's worth, as this thread moves along, some additional (latest) context (on top of the Jay Rosen pieces referenced earlier_ on this conversation, which has been taking place all over the Web for some time now.

    Ethics meet Ethics by Jeff Jarvis

    List of shared values from the Respectful Disagreement discussion by Dave Winer

  30. William on 08 May 2005

    Actually, thinkbig, I was describing your behavior rather than throwing around names (such as when you bastardized DeWitt's name). A description of your behavior is not an insult in and of itself. When I consider the nature of your arguments and how easily they are dispatched, I really have to wonder why you would bother making them.

    You may be sincere in your debate, but I have a difficult time believing so. If you displayed a lesser intellect, maybe then I could believe you were sincere. Not saying you should care at all what I think, but letting you know just in case you're wondering.

  31. Sid on 08 May 2005

    The documentary "Control Room" is an excellent take on bias in journalism, how things get reported, who reports them, etc.

  32. Alan DeWitt on 08 May 2005

    I don't know why this didn't spring to mind before, but another site carving out that new journalistic territory with the Communique is Groklaw. It is also a blog that does real reporting on a fairly narrow scope of subjects, and it too presents the editor's analysis and opinion alongside straight news in the same posts. (To make the similarity greater still, it's been under attack by one of its favorite subjects, the SCO group, which is just about as incoherent as that local fella.)

    Groklaw has often scooped the modern industrial press by virtue of good legwork and especially by excellent analysis. It's now a good news source for much of the US legal news related to free- and open- source software, and the premier outlet for news on certain highly influential legal cases currently in the courts.

    Groklaw is probably far more influential than Communique and is certainly more widely read, but then it is covering news of national import instead of just local import. Still, the structure of the journalism at work is not that different from one site to the other. Read some posts on each site, and you may find that b!x and PJ of Groklaw have a very similar approach to mixing news and opinion.

  33. thinkbigPDX on 08 May 2005

    Doubting my sincerity is a nice way to dodge the real issues that I bring up and for which you do not have an answer. If you happened to read the NYTimes today, you may have seen an article in the business section about blogs. It was focused on the business of blogging, not the ethics, but it did talk about some the “independent” media issues we have been discussing and it also had a very interesting quote from the publisher of Gawker Media—Nick Denton. He was asked about the blog “revolution” and his comment was, “Give me a break.” He went on to comment that blogs are much better at tearing things down—people, careers, brands—that at building them up. He is quoted again as saying, “the hype comes from unemployed or partially employed marketing professionals and people who never made it as journalists wanting to believe. They want to believe there’s going to be this news revolution and their lives are going to be changed.” Now why would he say that? Why would he feel this way given that he is soon to be publishing 17 blogs?

    I believe that if blog editors decided to follow the ethics of traditional journalism, this would not limit their ability to talk about the PR pros that speak to them or try to spin them, they might not get the next story if the PR person doesn’t trust them, but that is a calculated risk that they should take. The risk they should not take is acting as they wish and always on their own, forging a new path never before walked by anyone and pushing their own agendas. There is a system in place (one full of failing media outlets) and the blog world is in a perfect position to take advantage of that system to expand its reach, to gain credibility and to bring readers on all subjects that are tired of the corporate spin and editorial control to the blog world. In order to do this, the blog world needs to grow up, to be willing to build things up as readily as it tears them down today. To be objective and not just jump into the fray and encourage the pile-on the bitch of the moment attitude that prevails on this site or most other Blogs. If the editors would bring a balanced perspective to the conversation, if they would play devil’s advocate rather than cheerleader when the spin gets out of control, know when to say when without compromising their feelings, then we would have a revolution in journalism and people would have a valuable, new way to get news and information and the blog revolution could be a reality. Until then, I will have to agree with Mr. Denton and join him in saying, “Give me a break.”

  34. Suzii on 09 May 2005

    As a break from the action, I'd like to thank b!X for his use of the first person, both singular and plural. Pretending that the reporter wasn't there is one of the silliest conventions in journalese.

  35. edison on 09 May 2005

    "...the blog world is in a perfect position to take advantage of that system to expand its reach, to gain credibility and to bring readers on all subjects that are tired of the corporate spin and editorial control to the blog world. In order to do this, the blog world needs to grow up, to be willing to build things up as readily as it tears them down today." - thinkbigPDX
    The NYT article referenced is an excellent case in point of the mainstream defending itself from their self-appointed position as the default position for accuracy and credibility. I would submit that to creat a credible' blog world', the last thing that should be done would be for bloggers to emulate a mainstream media that has failed. Perhaps, the very existance of blogs (like this one) speaks more clearly to this than anything. The NYT hasn't been appointed royal validator yet, has it? Oh, in case of doubt, and in the interest of transparancy, I think b!x is fine; no need to change anything.

  36. thinkbigPDX on 09 May 2005

    Edison-The quote was from someone who runs a company of blogs, not from the NYT. The NYT just interviewed him. Please read the article and then let us know what you think.

  37. Alan DeWitt on 09 May 2005

    tbpdx: "[...] They want to believe there’s going to be this news revolution and their lives are going to be changed.” Now why would he say that? Why would he feel this way given that he is soon to be publishing 17 blogs?

    Because he's a publisher who looks at blogging as a business. He's no revolutionary. Slightly further along in the article is written:

    For all of the stiff-arming and disdain that Mr. Denton brings to the discussion of this nonrevolution, however, there is no question that he and his team are trying to turn the online diarist's form - ephemeral, fast-paced and scathingly opinionated - into a viable, if not lucrative, enterprise. Big advertisers like Audi, Nike and General Electric have all vied for eyeballs on Gawker's blogs [...] To his mind, it is built around a basic publishing model.

    Gawker is not really new; it's just Condé Nast writ small and paperless. In fact, Gawker's managing editor Lockhart Steele is quoted in the article comparing it to Condé Nast:

    "[...] Nick founded Gawker very specifically with the idea of starting a whole bunch of blogs in very niche topic areas, hire freelance writers to write each of them, hopefully draw a lot of eyeballs and then sell advertising around it. He had the idea that no one site would probably ever make a fortune. But if you have 10 sites each making $75,000 a year, then, O.K., maybe it's not like Condé Nast money, but it's a nice little business."

    There's nothing wrong with what Gawker is doing, so far as I know... but it is sharply distinct from what Communique, Groklaw, and RoguePundit are up to. Comparisons between them are not really all that useful.

    tbpdx: The risk they should not take is acting as they wish and always on their own, forging a new path never before walked by anyone and pushing their own agendas.

    I'm really glad that Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison didn't take this view. If they were speaking on this topic today, they might partially agree with you and say "prudence, indeed, will dictate that journalistic traditions long established should not be changed for light and transient causes." Yet the causes are not light and transient: although there is a system in place, it is as you say one full of failing media outlets.

    By way of example, I haven't watched TV news by choice in many years because it ceased to hold any value for me. As a business it may be going strong, but as a news source it's lost its way. I'd rather get a root canal than watch local TV news; I usually carry a TV-B-Gone to ensure I can escape it. The Oregonian and Statesman-Journal still have value to me as news sources, but not so much that I'm willing to pay for the privelige of recycling a pound of newsprint every day. (I read the Statesman online, but the Oregonian's website is just too excerable to bother with.) Talk radio is just blogging in less depth and without archival; since those are two features I value highly I give it a miss. (Sorry Lars.) The best traditional local news source for me is OPB radio (which reminds me, I'd better send in a pledge) but they only have a couple hours a week of local content, and it's at inconvienient times for me so I miss it a lot.

    I'm ready for something new. Viva the revolution, baby.

    tbpdx: If the editors would bring a balanced perspective to the conversation, if they would play devil’s advocate rather than cheerleader when the spin gets out of control, know when to say when without compromising their feelings, then we would have a revolution in journalism and people would have a valuable, new way to get news and information and the blog revolution could be a reality.

    That's a really commendable set of goals. I am so looking forward to reading your blog. E-mail me when you get it started, and I'll be a regular reader. For now I'll be reading this one.

    By the way, I think what edison is trying to say is that the NYT (a traditional media outlet if there ever was one) may be biased against blogging in general because it is a potential comtetitor. (Note that the article is archived in the NYT business section.) This story characterizes the "blogging revolution" as a non-event and more of the same, a characterization which (intentionally or not) serves the interest of traditional media. Of course, in the case of Gawker this characterization is absolutely correct... but Gawker is not representative of the whole story of blogging.

  38. paul gronke on 09 May 2005

    B!x,

    I applaud you for the work that you do. I've posted so publicly. I also have criticized you on two occasions, and I'll just repeat those here.

    On the issue of same-sex marriage and Measure 36, I think your personal opinions strayed far too regularly into your coverage. Your regular use of descriptions such as the "righteous wing" undermine the credibility of your coverage of the issue.

    Similarly on the Beam/Opus controversy, you have labored mightily to find flaws in the PDC decision making process, but I have seen little effort on your part to uncover reasons why the choice of Opus may have been the right one. Doesn't your claim of independent, balanced coverage oblige you to give at least some time to the other side?

    And again, in this case, your use of adjectives (e.g. your use of "rogue" to describe the decision) doesn't help your claim of independence.

    Keep up the good work.

  39. Peter Graven on 09 May 2005

    I think the real issue is that those coming from more traditional media like what we see with B!x and occasionally are surprised by the editorial comments mixed in. They may not be used to other blogs but have found this one in their bookmarks.

    That brings the square hole-circle peg problem of what to do about these surprisingly lapses in conformity. Either the readers can change how they interpret the posts and how much they respect the blog, the writer can conform to their standards, or a new blog may form that is all the facts and none of the B!xdom. That is the luxury we have with this low-cost medium. There are plenty of good domain names out there if someone finds it worthwhile to publish a new blog.

    The truth is, the ultra-rational types will probably be bummed out with the regurgitation of meeting agendas that they would find on the new site and the rabble rowsing crowd will miss folks like thinkbigPDX who aren't afraid to be constructively critical.

  40. thinkbigPDX on 09 May 2005

    Peter and Paul-I could not agree more—additionally, if B!X and the Communique were a traditional blog—only the editor’s opinion and experiences etc. then all the arguments about independence and objectivity would be cleaner and everyone piling on here would be right. The problem is that as DimWitt pointed out, B!X is mixing journalism and blogging in a new form of media. B!X has also acknowledged his mixing of fact and opinion and his further belief that it is up to the reader to decipher the whole thing through comparison with other sources. To date this has served B!X well and his readership has grown because he does a good job getting facts right and his opinion is shared by a large community, and those that don’t share it want to be aware of it for their own reasons. All of this leads to the creation of an authority (in the persona of B!X and the contents of the communique) on the topic of Portland Politics.
    Is there not a responsibility that comes with this authority? Can’t this authority be abused if the editor can write off any lack of objectivity by claiming personal opinion/experience as the motivation for the contents of a given story? Again in the NYTimes, from May 9th business section, there is a report on a group at the paper that was charged with building a plan to increase the paper’s credibility. Many of their points involved making the news reporting process more transparent including making the transcripts of interviews available to the public, making the reporters and editors more available by e-mail, discouraging the use of anonymous sources and even creating a blog to promote interaction with readers. These are all things that B!X, and other blog editors are doing and should continue to do. These practices are part of what makes blogs so interesting and why they have earned a place in the media world today. This is a world where 45% of Americans believe “little or nothing of what they read in their local paper.” according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center and I think there is probably a correlation to blog readership in there somewhere (no doubt the percentage for the Portland metro area who read this site and the Oregonian is closer to 75%.)
    However, the Times also found that it would increase reader trust if it could do a better job of making a clear distinction between news and opinion. If a news source like the NYTimes puts together a committee to discover how it can best increase reader trust (and the authority of the publication) and one of the main points is to do a better job of clarifying what is news and what is opinion, how in the world can the editor of this site not feel he could increase reader trust and thus the authority of his site by doing the same thing?
    I would also go further and say that this would be a good thing for each participant in this site because readership would go up and as that happens, the power of each of our voices gets louder with the benefit of the greatest amplification landing squarely in the One True Lap. I would also point out that advertisers are drawn by readership and ad revenue would allow for more in-depth reporting and maybe even a staff to help the coverage grow.

  41. thinkbigPDX on 09 May 2005

    DimWitt says: “I'm really glad that Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison didn't take this view. If they were speaking on this topic today, they might partially agree with you and say "prudence, indeed, will dictate that journalistic traditions long established should not be changed for light and transient causes." Yet the causes are not light and transient: although there is a system in place, it is as you say one full of failing media outlets.”

    Your consistent historical reference to our founding fathers is something that I ignored the first time, but now will answer, briefly as it is sort of off topic, but now it needs to be put in its proper place. The founding fathers were a moneyed class who, in many ways, were as determined to maintain the status quo as the British. They had to find language inspiring to all people, clear enough in its complaints to wake the people from their passive, survival mentality and arouse anger against the British, general enough to avoid class conflict among the “rebels” and emotionally stirring enough to build patriotic feeling for the resistance. They were rich and they wanted to stay that way. To do this they needed to satisfy the people, but just enough to maintain power. The constitution is not just the work of wise men, revolutionaries who valued the freedoms that we do today, it is the work of self-interested, powerful, white men concerned with maintaining their privileges and giving just enough of the rest of the people just enough liberty to gain popular support for the shift of control from the British monarchy to the American aristocracy. The constitution is a document that in short sets up the rules for rights and property in our society—the declaration of independence sets up our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness while the constitution establishes our right to life, liberty and property—the wealthy have to either control the government or absent that control, they must control the laws under which the government operates.

    The interpretation of this document by the Supreme Court over the past 200+ years is what you should be grateful for, not the vision of our founding fathers. Sorry to all for the digression, but DimWitt needs to get the facts straight on this among other things. Alan—read Howard Zinn, Robert E Brown or Charles Beard to start, and when you are done, let me know and I will recommend some more for you that will be more interesting and educational than anything I could put in a blog or that you will read on these pages.

  42. William on 09 May 2005

    OK, I believe you are sincere. Your last few posts haven't really demanded a lengthy response, and you've put a lot of time into them. I apologize for calling your motives into suspect.

    On the other hand, I still think you're being persnickety.

    Doubting my sincerity is a nice way to dodge the real issues that I bring up and for which you do not have an answer.

    Please think about it. This whole post and thread is dedicated to addressing your issues, and from my take on it, b!X has answered you and answered you well. I have put in my thoughts, as have others. So it's not like you haven't been answered. So why act as though there's still a need for you to be answered when you already have been? It's not up to me to answer all of your issues, since other people have done a great job (not to mention that I wouldn't spend that much time doing so).

    Ultimately, it's up to b!X to decide how to run the Communique, and your statements of how things should be are your opinion (as in how you think things should be) so I'm not sure where you're coming from with all of your "I'm correct" absolute statements (words such as must, should, etc).

    Why not present your views as opinion, back them up with your own specific examples whenever they're negative opinions (and positive too, I suppose), and then accept the results? For example, you ask for b!X to follow his guidelines, and his response is that he thinks he does. Then your reply with Honest site? Media Democracy? Now who is responsible for the “BS”???? And so on.

    When you do things like that, you come across as heavily biased to the point that I think some people would wonder if you weren't the one who's not being objective. But I do have to confess; I think the quality of your posts has improved over the course of this thread and I've actually enjoyed reading the last few.

  43. DimWitt on 09 May 2005

    tbpdx: "The founding fathers were a moneyed class who, in many ways, were as determined to maintain the status quo as the British."

    No kidding! Really? The founding fathers were rich white men? Gee, I didn't know that. Boy howdy, you really put me in my place again.

    So, now that you've got your offtopic dig at me over with, how about addressing my more general point that if no one took risks, nothing new would be created? (Or did you just totally fail to see the point again?)

    Constructive criticism is wonderful, and I'm delighted to see that you've actually offered some that may be useful to this editor and others. But your blanket statements that bloggers "should" do this or that are mostly unsupported value judgements. You're taking on the role of moral arbiter here, proscribing a course of action for all to follow because it suits your tastes.

    If b!x wants to follow his own course, acknowledging and respecting the additional risks it carries, he is free to do so. By so doing, he may open a road for others to follow to a new and possibly better form of journalism. (Of course, he might crash and burn, too.) That's not your choice to make for him.

    If you want to help him do better, stop talking about what he "should" or "should not" do and start talking about practical ways to facilitate what he is obviously determined to do. If that isn't good enough for you, I suggest you start your own website and demonstrate how to do it right.

    "However, the Times also found that it would increase reader trust [...]"

    Hey, speaking of reader trust, how about a link to that article? Since you largely mischaracterized the last one (which I had already read), I'm not inclined to trust your interpretation of this one (which I have not).

    "[...] how in the world can the editor of this site not feel he could increase reader trust and thus the authority of his site by doing the same thing?"

    You're just full of specious rhetorical questions, aren't you? (Or maybe you are an empath and know his feelings on the subject?)

    But here's one possible answer, the accuracy of which is unknown to me: Perhaps he does feel that he could increase reader trust that way... but also feels that he has a sufficiency of reader trust now. One need not be perfect to be good enough, after all.

  44. thinkbigPDX on 09 May 2005

    Constructive specifics to help B!X see where his writing could lead people to confuse opinon and fact based his latest post:

    Unexpectedly, Matt Hennessee Talks Burnside Bridgehead

    (Why is this unexpected B!X? Did the agenda say who from PDC would be speaking or are you trying to tell the readers that Matt Hennessee was unexpected because when one is GUILTY of something, we tend not to want to speak on the subject?)

    Also: Sten Wants City Council To Handle Beam Appeal

    (Is there any mention of the fact that this request is potentially out of bounds for Eric’s position?)

    What we didn't expect was for Lew Bowers of PDC to get up and leave the room fifteen minutes after the meeting began, only to return several minutes later with Matt Hennessee, PDC's Chair, firmly in tow.

    (This sentence is leading. It clearly implies that he was attending reluctantly—almost as if he were dragged to the meeting because the lackey that he sent couldn’t handle the job. Is this a fact or your opinion? How should the reader know?)

    When the time for the Bridgehead agenda item came, Susan Pearce (member of the URAC and serving as chair for the meeting) quipped: "I'm wondering if you two are wearing flak jackets."

    (Colorful quip that would be relevant if you had spoken about the mood in the room, the attitude of the other attendees etc. without this background, this quip is out of place and serves to add fuel to the fire of anticipation as the reader waits for Hennessee to be gutted by questions about his indefensible and rogue decision.)

    But before we get to the remarks and discussion involving Hennessee, there are at least a couple of new pieces of information about where we are now in the process, in the wake of Beam Development filing an appeal of the Commission's decision.

    (The readers are on the edge of their collective seat, “Tell us B!X, what happened next? When does the blood start to fly and who gets the credit for slaying the dragon that is the PDC? Why do you make us wait? It’s excruciating not to jump right to the really gory parts!)
    ETC, ETC. ETC

    I am trying to learn blog ediquite and following Williams advice because I agree with his perspective and think it has been a good conversation.thanks for all of you who have read all this stuff, I just hope in the end that B!X will realize that with authority and power comes the one true responsibility.

  45. The One True b!X on 09 May 2005

    The odd thing is, several of those questions are answered if you read more than just the opening to the piece, a fact which itself raises a question regarding omission: Are you intentionally ignoring the fact that several of these questions have answers in the piece, to try to make it seem like I'm somehow going astray, or did you simply forget to click "continue" and actually read the entire piece?

  46. The One True b!X on 09 May 2005

    One other thing, to actually address the concept of unclear or missing bits from one article or the other. Not to belabor the point, but this is another thing which functions differently in this medium as opposed to others.

    I've said that no single story (in this or any other medium, because it's actually just as true for, say, newspapers) can be taken alone, but as part of the continuum of an evolving story. In the world of blogs, that continuum includes the extension of each article into the reader comments.

    By which I mean this: If a reader feels that something is missing from a post here (regardless of whether, in the end, it turns out it was missing from their reading or missing from my writing), the solution is simple: Post a comment and ask about it. Chances are pretty good that it won't be long before I post a reply fleshing out whatever the issue is, if I happen to be able to do so.

    The very nature of other mediums/forms of news (newspapers, nightly television broadcasts, etc.) makes that dynamic nearly impossible, and so those forms have developed in ways that construct certain manners in which stories are "supposed" to appear in the first instance.

    While clarity and comprehensiveness, of course, are goals here, especially when trying to detail a lengthy discussion (such as the one from the URAC earlier today), it's not inconceivable that something will either be missed or is unclear.

    The thing is, that's not a disaster for a blog in the way it's traditionally viewed in prior forms of news media, precisely because the baffled reader has direct and nearly-immediate access to the writer, and can get further information or explanation.

  47. Peter Graven on 10 May 2005

    B!x makes a good point about the dialogue nature of his blog. In some ways the edge of your seat writing style (ie. more of a story than a report) does stimulate better dialogue. There is some mystery for the reader to inquire. It gets the reader involved. It creates a question in their mind that may lead to a thoughtful post.

    I would suspect and have seen that B!x becomes more neutral as readers write in with what are likely opinions he shares on the issue. He does become more of a facilitator at times. This is natural in a conversation; people to try to balance it out for the good of the conversation. I think that he has built up enough of a following of folks that share his positions that he could easily become more of a facilitator but, there again, his job becomes quite a bit more dull.

    It's really just a matter of how much criticism he wants to take. If he doesn't mind it (possibly even feeding off it) then he could continue with the angles and color. If he tires of defending his style he will become more of a facilitator with report style posts and useful references and clarifications.

    I have a question. How does this blog rate with others in the aggresiveness of posts? By that I mean, people really duking it out with each other. People seem pretty fiesty, but maybe that's just how it goes and maybe that brings us back.

  48. doretta on 10 May 2005

    I think b!X's experiment in "transparency" over traditional "objectivity" is very interesting and I very much appreciate his stretching beyond traditional "blowhard" blogging. Certainly it represents bigger thinking than the call to copy the mainstream.

    Here's what I want from news-oriented media:

    1. When they report facts, I want them to report what they believe to be true and to have made a serious effort to verify that they are true and I want pointers to their sources.

    2. Rather than just reporting what various people have said about a subject, I want the media to dig into the reality of those statements as far as they are able.

    3. When they express an opinion, I want to see the evidence upon which their opinion is based and I want to hear their reasoning from the evidence.

    My bias is normally toward print media, I subscribe to the Oregonian and read several other local papers and the NYT regularly. I only read one other blog on a regular basis. As far as the favorite local target of abuse goes, my personal opinion is that the Oregonian does a pretty good job of #1, as does b!X. The Oregonian does a great job of #2 on those blockbuster series that are aimed at getting a Pulitzer nomination and not nearly so good at much of the rest of their reporting. The contrast with b!X is that he does this much more consistently but, to be fair, he also gets to leave a lot out since he isn't trying to be a comprehensive news source. At #3 there is no contest. The Oregonian's unsigned editorializing regularly displays ignorance of even the most basic facts and arguments about their subjects. B!X, on the other hand, does a great job of this. Since he expresses his opinions in the context of his factual reporting, he never opines on things he doesn't know anything about. The Oregonian would be a lot more relevant as well as a lot more interesting if they followed his example on their editorial page.

    The way the ability to interact plays out on this site is also very interesting. The principals (city commissioners, engaged activists, etc.) far outnumber the crackpots who post here. That is not the usual case and is testimony to b!X's vision and skill.

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