D  e  s  e  r  t     E  x  p  o  s  u  r  e   April 2007



The J-Word

When bloggers start to play at being journalists, readers have a right to expect the same standards of accuracy and fairness.

 

I don't spend a lot of time thinking of myself as a capital-J Journalist, the way I suppose some Doctors or Lawyers or others mentally clothe themselves in their professions. I tend to think of myself in more functional terms—writer, editor, newspaper delivery boy (yes, Desert Exposure remains very much a "mom and pop" operation). But then something happens to remind me that the tenets of my profession, too, are worth not only remembering but honoring. No lives depend on what journalists do—though the wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Hospital, whose plight was recently spotlighted by the Washington Post, might disagree. People seldom go to jail because of our work—though the recent death of Watergate crook E. Howard Hunt reminds us that journalism can and does uncover lawbreaking. But reputations can be ruined by careless journalism, businesses unfairly stained, careers crippled. Even if it's only someone's feelings being hurt, if the story was inaccurate or unbalanced, the journalist at fault let down his or her profession and readers.

Some have hailed the rise of various forms of digital distribution of information and opinion—Web forums, blogs, email lists—as a healthy check on the arrogance of the mainstream media, and I suppose this can be true. Proponents praise blogs and other personal publishing via the Internet as ushering in a new era of independent voices, unfettered by the hidebound ways of Old Media. I suppose this can be true as well, though I can't help wondering who has time to read all these blogs and whether this audience—and the bloggers too—shouldn't perhaps get a life instead.

When people start to get their "facts" from blogs and email postings, however, when they begin to invest amateurs with the trust previously reserved for journalism professionals, suddenly those hidebound ways look pretty important. I know it sounds snooty to speak of "amateurs" and "professionals." Isn't anybody who can bang on a keyboard a "writer"? (Sure, and I'm pretty good with a carving knife and have always had a hankering to try heart surgery.)

The point isn't to inhibit anyone's creative expression or keep Joe Blogger from telling the world what he really thinks of the latest World of Warcraft. Rather, it's that if electronic instant journalists want to play the game, they have to abide by the same rules of fairness, even-handedness, transparency and, above all, accuracy. And when they critique mainstream media, bloggers had better be prepared to have themselves held to the same standards.

What do I mean by that? Here are a few lessons I've learned from (gasp!) nearly 30 years as a Journalist. I can't say I haven't occasionally slipped up on these, but at least I have the professional pride to feel rotten when I do. We try to follow these standards at Desert Exposure, and I like to think that during our tenure—this issue marks our fourth anniversary—we've done pretty well:

• Don't attack people's character in the guise of attacking their ideas. The recent storm of criticism over Larry Lightner's columns about defense against wolves (see this issue's overflowing Letters column) saw a number of unfortunate slurs against Larry as a person. I disagree with Larry on just about everything in terms of public policy, but I also know him to be a thoroughly decent human being.
  
  
• Check your facts before disseminating them. Donna Lawder, our popular new business columnist, won't publish a rumor that some business is closing until she's confirmed it with the owner or actually seen the store boarded up. For bloggers and email posters, the Internet makes it easy to fire off charges and rumors—but it also should make it easy to check "facts" before zapping them to the world. Did Desert Exposure really "censor" letters critical of Lightner in our last issue, as one email exchange hastily claimed? Journalistic standards would require checking before publishing such a claim as fact. (In this example, the letters in question simply arrived after the March Letters page was full and finished; they appear in this issue instead.)
  
  
• Give people an opportunity to respond. No, this doesn't mean causing a stir and only then letting your victim scramble to try to set the record straight. Consider this issue's story on the spaceport tax (page B1): It would have been tempting to make the story "juicier" by pointing out that John L. Hummer, co-chair of the spaceport-boosting People for Aerospace, would also seem to benefit personally from the spaceport as managing director of Rocket Racing League Land Development LLC—and just leave it at that, with the implication hanging in readers' minds. Instead, however, we gave Hummer a chance to respond—you'll read his entire reply in this issue's story—and learned that he signed on to People for Aerospace before he switched to the real-estate business.
  
  
• Present both sides of the story. Many of the facts in that spaceport story, detailing missed milestones and broken promises in the spaceport saga to date, might make boosters squirm. But we also present their side of the story, quoting Hummer and Space Authority head Rick Homans, among others, at length. By contrast, true-believer bloggers whose only purpose is to bash others or to push their personal biases prefer to pretend that the world is painted in black and white, with no shades of gray to perturb their preconceptions. In their worldview, others are not entitled to differing opinions—much less the right to share them.
  
  
• Put it in context. If only a single spaceport tenant had missed one self-proclaimed deadline, it would be unfair to report that without the larger context of promises kept. Similarly, for someone to conclude that Desert Exposure is "pro-hunting"—as one e-posting recently did—without considering our two in-depth investigations of trapping is, well, simply silly.
  
  
• Don't be a hypocrite. Don't toss out charges of "censorship," for example, and then censor others trying to set the record straight. Don't stake out the high moral ground even as you're playing games behind readers' backs. We try to hold Desert Exposure to the same standards we apply to others. When we screw up—hey, we're only human!—we fess up.
  
  
• Don't criticize something you've never actually seen. This seems like a no-brainer, but Desert Exposure was recently subjected to an electronic critique by a judge (of all things) who lives in Albuquerque—and who based her conclusions only on what she'd read about us in the blogosphere. One hopes that she actually bothers to hear the evidence in her court cases before rendering a verdict.
  
  
• Don't steal others' intellectual property. Who hasn't copied a story online, pasted it into an email and fired it off to a friend? But that's different—at least in scale, if not technically in copyright infringement—from simply appropriating an author's work and publishing it, without payment, in thousands of copies of a periodical. It's no less theft if the unauthorized republication is on a Web site, in a blog or in a mass emailing. Ethical (not to mention legal) bloggers summarize a story of interest, then link to the original article. Just because it's on the Internet doesn't mean it's free. Some hardworking journalist labored to create it—a professional, whose livelihood depends on their craft.

Come to think of it, yes, there are days when I'm pretty proud to be a Journalist. I may not save anybody's life or put a scofflaw in jail today, but by golly at least I'll get my facts straight and try to be fair in my reporting. For those who try to follow the same rules in the brave new world of blogs and such, I say, welcome aboard! As for the rest, well, maybe it's time to unplug.

 

Another tenet we try to abide by in these pages is that it's not all about us—Desert Exposure is here to serve you, the readers. While we welcome your ideas and feedback all year 'round, every April we especially invite you to tell us what you think and how we can make "The biggest little paper in the Southwest" even better. You'll find that invitation in the form of our annual reader survey on page A7 of the printed issue. You can also fill out the survey online—yes, some things the Internet is really useful for!—at www.desertexposure.com/survey. The poor souls who have to tabulate the paper surveys (that would be us, "mom and pop") particularly urge you to register your opinions electronically.

All of which reminds us that we would be remiss as we enter our fifth year of publishing Desert Exposure—and the publication's second decade overall—if we didn't once again thank you, the readers, for making us a part of your lives every month. We've been astonished and humbled by the reception you've given our stewardship of Desert Exposure—as evidenced by the fact that last issue was precisely double the page count of our first issue, in 2003.

Our readers and (let's not forget!) our advertisers, who make possible the issue you hold in your hands, are the real stars of Desert Exposure. We look forward to the opportunity to continue to serve you.

 

David A. Fryxell is the editor of Desert Exposure.

 

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