IP Democracy: When Bloggers Go Too Far

David Carr has an article in today’s New York Times that examines the professional resposibilities of bloggers — he essentially advocates they take on more journalistic responsibilities when it comes to sensitive material. Using the recent titillating incident of a fashion industry-oriented journalist (this may explain why this excellent piece is relegated to the Arts section) accused (at least in the blogosphere) of a bizarre scenario of setting a fire to dress up as a fireman in order to repeatedly rape a woman, Carr examines the unrestrained coverage of this copy-inducing situation, particularly coverage by Gawker. (Carr may be getting his own back with his article — Gawker once ran a nasty rumor about Carr).

Blogs can be serious enough and conventional enough in execution to fit in with mainstream media (as will be the case when Time.com will begin running AndrewSullivan.com in January). But because blogs can be amended or erased, the people who write them tend not to be held to account. The expectation is that bloggers will transgress lines in terms of efficacy and tone and anybody who complains is viewed as a weenie.

A generation of Web writers - many of them excellent and genuinely hilarious - sees the world and its travails through a hail of nasty e-mail messages, tips and other blogs. That’s a different job than leaving the computer screen to interview the mother of an eight-year-old who has been run over by a car. Ms. Coen of Gawker and some of her fellow bloggers are fond off pointing out that they are not reporters, which explains everything and excuses nothing.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 14, 2005 11:44 AM to IP Democracy