Here is the dirty truth: I have no idea what that 'Zephergate' thing was all about. I tried to make it through several blogposts that explained the contraversy; but I just couldn't get past the first few paragraphs. I'm simply not interested in such matters; and I make it a point to avoid the world of people that are. That said, I wanted to share some 'thoughts'(1) about the debate on blogging, ethics, and journalism.
The blog is a piece of software (a.k.a. a tool). Without a human being, a blog decays into a dead rotting lump ones and zeros ( a point well demonstrated by the millions of abandoned blogs). I feel that I'm restating the obvious here, however, I've yet to read my next point among the threads of comments in these debates. Questions about ethics in blogging can only be understood if posed in human-centered languge, and terms (2). Here's one way to think of it: every time you encounter a question related to blogs, replace the word "blog" with "hammer", and "blogosphere" with "pile of hammers". I've found the trick to be quite useful in helping me think about the questions in a clearer sense. For example:
Comments should be searchable. I should be able to aggregate all comments I or someone else has left on a particular blog. Ideally, this should span the entire blogosphere so that I could aggregate all the comments I have left on all blogs. It would be easy, then. to see where people go and what they say. This way the audience of the blogosphere would be much more empowered. In essence, I wouldn't necessarily have to startmy own blog to, in effect, have a blog of sorts.
I've just recieved an offer from Kevin Hayden to write at The American Street. It's a great honor, and look forward to posting there on a weekly basis.
I wonder if those self-important TV pundits who proclaimed that "after the election, bloggers aren't going to have anything to do anymore!" feel stupid.
