What Is “Ethical Blogging”?

There has been a lot of talk on “ethical blogging” from here as well as throughout the Virginia blogosphere.  It is a thread that returns time and time again and an issue that never seems to find a solution.  Many take issue with the concept of “ethical blogging” though whether this is because they have a view of blogs as the Wild West or merely because they take issue with certain points made by those arguing for ethics is known only to the offended party.

Whackette at The Daily Whackjob shared her Ten Commandments For Bloggers which provide an interesting framework for discussion.

We here at God Save Virginia also have an idea of what ethical blogging means to us.

It means kindness to your fellow man.

It means respecting the host, the visitors, and the subjects.

It means a respect for the opinion of others but also a respect for differences in those opinions.  That respect does not mean you don’t debate, it simply means that ones approach to the debate needs to be framed by the issues and an understanding that both parties are at their core good people who are strong in their convictions.

It means being able to admit when you are wrong.

It means being able to separate yourself from those elements that you feel cause harm to yourself and others.  This does not mean removing yourself from differing opinions, but if you feel a site does not meet your personal criteria for ethical actions, why continue to visit, promote, and discuss that site?

So now we open the floor up to you, our readers:

What does “ethical blogging” mean to you?  What does it entail?  Does it even matter?

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments though we also welcome and highly promote continuing the conversation on your own blogs, engaging your own readers and opening the floor to an even wider audience.

Personal Vendettas In The Virginia Blogosphere

Plubius and Lumen at The Virginia Federalist shared some thoughts on the post-Primary dust-ups in the Virginia Blogosphere.

First from Plubius:

We just witnessed a primary election where the candidate who asked his bloggers to stop blogging for him, Hanger, beat the candidate who let his bloggers run rampant, Sayre. What does this say about the future of the blogosphere? If bloggers loose their credibility they have lost everything. If you have personally problems, fine, TAKE IT OUTSIDE. I don’t want to listen to you bicker about your personally issues.

There are some legitimate exceptions where fellow bloggers and the public as a whole need to know certain things, but this is a fine line. Be very careful before you cross it.

After the SWAC bloggers took great offense to Plubius’s assessment, Lumen came to his defense:

Publius didn’t give Hanger bloggers a pass - he referred to the “Sayre/Hanger blog wars,” implying two sides to the violence. He just pointed out that Hanger made an effort to pull his supporters off of the blog attacks, and (perhaps for that reason) Hanger won a close election. When the attacks start flying, it is hard for anyone to sort through the passion to find the truth, and so people just get fed up with everyone involved. The best thing anyone can do when the debate starts to get overly personal is often to remove oneself from the fight.

The situation is similar in the Kilo/Waldo dispute, where it is impossible to sort fact from fiction, and so everyone involved seems covered in mud. Maybe Waldo was wrong about who commented on his site and falsely impugned Kilo, but was it necessary to call Waldo a “liar” in the title of a post? Is there no amicable way for people involved to explain what they thought and did and then to publicly clear the air?

Publius did not propose any rules, just some self control. Bloggers discredit themselves and the blogosphere as a medium when they bring ad hominem attacks against each other into the political discourse. It is only fair that The Virginian Federalist criticize bloggers for the same gossip and personal attacks that we have previously condemned in the mainstream media news channels.

At a certain point some of these “debates” cross the line and become about something more than politics. They become personal and for all the wrong reasons. Instead of taking what is viewed as personal slights offsite and discussing the issues with the parties involved, some bloggers decide to go above and beyond and call out the other side, making very public what could be explained and handled in a private manner.

Waldo Jaquith changed the name of a commenter to Carl Kilo, who proceeded to call Mr. Jaquith a liar for such a move. Mr. Jaquith, in a follow-up, admitted the following:

Two days ago, another post was made from the same IP address, using the same e-mail address (an e-mail address that doesn’t show up in Google), this time under the unfortunate name of “Teddy’s Turds.” This was a moderately nasty comment, employing a tone that I try to discourage on my blogs. So I changed the comment’s author name to “Carl Kilo.”

So Carl again found himself caught in a lie, only this time publicly. He’s flailing the same as a year ago, rather than quietly admitting it was him or, better yet, saying nothing. (Or calling the police to alert them to the intruder in his home, using his e-mail address.)

This is why I should handle these things privately. It’s embarrassing to watch.

The Jaquith/Kilo issue is one man’s word against another with Mr. Jaquith’s evidence not being seriously questioned, merely who was truly behind the post from that computer. From the tone of this debate there is a sense of history between these two men.

In a somewhat similar situation, Ben Tribbett and Lowell Feld have called out George Burke, Democratic Chair of the 11th Congressional District, as posting in the past under the pseudonym “Thomas Paine Patriot”. Instead of simply stating the charge, Mr. Tribbett went so far as to post Mr. Burke’s IP address as proof of the connection, a step that Mr. Jaquith chose not to take for privacy’s sake. Again, from the tone of the debate one can see a history between all parties involved, but this history sounds more personal and destructive.

One large difference between these two instances is how far the accusers are going with their response. Mr. Jaquith “corrected” a comment and defended himself when called a liar by Mr. Kilo. Mr. Tribbett and Mr. Feld posted an IP address, claimed that Mr. Burke posted inflammatory statements under a false name, and then proceeded to heap abuse after abuse on the man without any further provocation. Mr. Jaquith made his statement, made his case, and left it at that.Mr. Tribbett and Mr. Feld made their statement, smelled blood, and went on the attack.

One may note a difference in that Mr. Tribbett and Mr. Feld are attacking a public official of sorts while Mr. Jaquith is merely taking issue with another blogger, so the actual impact and true meaning of what is happening is entirely different. Yet the approach does not need to differ that greatly. What Plubius has recommended is not too far fetched, that bloggers hesitate before going public with their issues and take their discussions off the web. If one finds themself offended or misrepresented there are plenty of ways to contact the offending party.

Blogging is a great tool in that it allows people to converse, not just on the blogs and through comments but through readily available and accessible authors. There are ways to express ones differences and issues that does not turn molehills into mountains.

But it takes an understanding that we are all human beings, that we are at our very core the same people with the same passions and same interests, albeit on different sides of the aisle. Yet we should all be striving for a civil tone that allows the issues to drive conversations, not personal issues and vendettas that get in the way of our delivering the messages we want to deliver.

It is not a matter of fighting fire with fire. People are smart and can see through the nonsense of aggressive blogging. It is the work of those who fight fire with water that win out in the end. And one hopes that the same can apply to all the Virginia blogosphere before we get too caught up in these personal fights and questionable ethics to turn back.

Blogging Ethics From Left To Right

F.T. Rea of SLANTBlog notices that blogging ethics seems to be this week’s theme, not just against Ben Tribbett but also from Richmond Democrat against the SWAC bloggers, perhaps best known for their battle with Waldo Jaquith and Shaun Kenney last Christmas.  The Richmond Democrat has one post about Dr. Kurt Michael, better known to the blogging world as General Grievous’s Dog, and another that details the outting of SWAC bloggers by Teddy’s Truth.

From Teddy’s Pinocchio Syndrome:

A few of the committee chairs within Virginia’s 24th Senatorial District have recently had a good time bending the truth.

In an unprecedented move, several of the chairs and vice chairs broke from the Republican party and attacked one of the elected representatives they were supposed to be supporting.

Whether or not chairs and elected officials within the Republican Party are required to support currently elected officials is a bit beside the point.  The big question should be, shouldn’t chairs and elected Party officials show a bit more restraint or maturity when trying to direct what could be construed as their local committee’s platform?

As committee chairs and actual local leaders within the party the appalling thing is how they go about their jobs in such a low manner.  One should be able to expect better from leadership.  That the lack of ethics is found in people who should be leading and showing the way is quite disturbing.

Credibility?

What is credibility and what does it mean to the blogosphere?  Via the American Heritage Dictionary and Dictionary.com:

cred·i·bil·i·ty    (krěd’ə-bĭl’ĭ-tē) n.  

1. The quality, capability, or power to elicit belief: “America’s credibility must not be squandered, especially by its leaders” (Henry A. Kissinger).
2. A capacity for belief: a story that strained our credibility.

And let’s not forget ethics:

eth·ic  (ěth’ĭk)  n.  

1. 1. A set of principles of right conduct.
   2. A theory or a system of moral values: “An ethic of service is at war with a craving for gain” (Gregg Easterbrook).
2. ethics (used with a sing. verb) The study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral philosophy.
3. ethics (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession: medical ethics.

What does this mean to the Virginia blogosphere?

Jason Kenney of J’s Notes targets Ben Tribbett in particular on credibility.  F.T. Rea of SLANTBlog says in his comments “Why any thoughtful Democrat who believes in fair play and doing the right thing continues to act as if NLS is good for the party, or the blogosphere, is a mystery to me” and, in his post on credibility, points out that there’s a larger issue at hand:

[I]t’s also a story about whether credibility, ethics or just common decency in the political blogosphere are concepts that will ever really matter.

When such lofty thinking is openly sneered at by some of its most important players, can the Virginia political blogosphere police itself?

Vivian Page doesn’t have an answer for Mr. Rea, but:

what I do know is that each group is defined by its most vocal minority. The real question is whether the Virginia Political blogosphere will allow itself to be defined by the few who push the boundaries of decency and ethics or the many who try to just do the right thing.

I can only hope that it is the latter.

You and me both, Ms. Paige.

In my first post, Brian L. commented that:

The Old Dominion has long been known for the cordiality of its citizens, even when they disagree. I think we’re for the most part kind with each other, but am always eager to do my part to improve the decorum of our Commonwealth’s blogosphere.

He’s absolutely right about the Old Dominion.  Virginia blogging has been well known for its tone and civility across the lines.  In the past.  But as of late partisan sniping and even intra-party spats have made blogging less and less civil and more juvenile.

But how do we, as responsible and reasonable bloggers, endeavour to fix these problems?

We can do it with our own blogging, providing content that engages in debate and conversations on an adult level.  By providing links to blogs, no matter their political slant, that engage us in this same way.

But also by not linking to those who strive to harm what Virginia blogging is best known for and by directly calling out those who seek to lower our discourse.

As Ms. Paige points out, blogging is defined by its most vocal minority.  The majority of Virginia’s bloggers are good, upstanding people who do right by themselves and by others.  By keeping yourself and others honest we show that we can be credible and ethical sources not just for one another but for all our readership and those we seek to impress, whether it be the media, the public, our families or ourselves.

Yes, Virginia, We’re In Trouble

As if the politicians weren’t bad enough we now have to deal with asshats pretending to be pundits.

 Yes, Virginia, I’m talking about bloggers.

Now, don’t let them fool you.  They aren’t all bad.  There are some great people out there who really do something to help the conversation and do their best to give blogs a good name.  But then there are those that seem to go out of their way with a scorched earth policy of blogging that aims at destroying any and everything in their path, even sinking the ship they’re trying steer.

People, the blogosphere is in trouble and with it all of netroots activism.

Who will join in the effort to save it?  Who still step forward and call out the bloggers on both sides of the aisle who are destroying the medium for everyone?  Who will bear the standard on which all ethical blogging can move forward and smother those that seek to do more harm than good?

Who will join me?