Feb

17

High Standards for Bloggers

February 17, 2008 |

I did say I wasn’t going to say anything about this topic anymore, but Mike Arrington’s post on TechCrunch about Fred Wilson’s post about ‘journabloggers’ just needs some commentary.

I’m not interested in the personal politics that are clearly at play here between Arrington and Wilson, or even about the exact details of the story of Like.com. I don’t know either Fred Wilson or Mike Arrington personally and I have no inside into the specific story (and I don’t particular enjoy how emotional this has gotten by now). I just want to write about the standard of blogging.

To me the question isn’t about whether individual bloggers (like me, frankly) should be held to a higher standard than bloggers at large blog publications like TechCrunch. The baseline standard is the same.

The question to me revolves around the audience and audience expectations.

Here is why: If a reader comes to my blog, that reader most likely doesn’t know me or whatever reputation I may or may not have. The reader then has no expectation about the trustworthiness of what I write. I have to earn that reputation by hopefully convincing the reader that I am not a complete crackpot.

However, when that same reader goes to TechCrunch, that reader’s set of expectations is very different. TechCrunch is an established, well-known, respected publication. The reader’s cynicism toward TechCrunch (or any other large blog publication for that matter) is far lower and hence the reader is more likely to believe what is written on TechCrunch at face value.

There, to me, lies the difference.

Does that mean that we shouldn’t hold everybody to the same, high standard? No it doesn’t. But it does mean that the large publications should hold themselves to an even higher standard. As Arrington writes himself - these large publications have access to inside sources and contacts that small bloggers don’t have access to. While a small blogger might have to make some educated guesses here and there, a writer for a large publication can make a few call to check things out.

That, to me, means that they are taking their audience seriously. When TechCrunch publishes a story about Google hijacking 404 pages and the writer says that he is on a Mac and can’t really confirm the story, then that’s a disservice to the reader.

And in the end - it’s really about our readers - not blog politics.


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1 Comment so far

  1. Alan Wilensky on February 18, 2008 12:29 am

    Hope you don’t mind the cloned comment, but this is something that has been on my mind since receiving a dubious tip on the Microsoft Yahoo deal that I went ahead and posted anyway:

    There are Blogs (cap B), and there are blogs (little b). I am a little b.

    I got a call from a third level acquaintance that works at a Pacific Northwest investment bank; he was panting that, “the Microsoft deal is off the table.” Fill Stop.

    I asked for his attribution, he declined, and I wrote it up. If my blog was a destination, and I was taking ad or subscriber dollars, I’m not sure that I’d be so quick to publish.

    But as I’m really just a small time contractor, and not a professional journalist or even a capital B Blogger, I figured what the heck.

    I might turn the source over to a real writer with investigative resources, someone who can dig and substantiate the claims.

    Of course, if it turns out my source was / is accurate - well, then we know how it shakes, and folks might take some of my posts seriously.

    One last note: Fred Wilson is never, ever, wrong. Anyone who controls the doling out of capital is never wrong. <:?

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