Can you trust a blogger?

Well, that depends. These days, everyone has an opinion and Facebook and blogger sites are means for anyone and everyone to get their opinion out to the public, including me as I am doing now. (Oh, the irony.)

The days are long gone of the news media filtering what isn’t relevant, what isn’t appropriate, what isn’t factual and what isn’t important before it gets wide exposure. Used to be, whether it was a news report, a commentary or an opinion letter, there was an editor who made these determinations and decided what to put out and how.

That seems like ancient history now.

Is this return to information “wild west” days, as was seen in 18^th and 19^th Century newspapers, a good thing?

It's both good and bad. The good is that information is now democratized. The editors no longer have control. Power to the people! Give voice to the little man, the vulnerable and the few with no powerful influence! No longer do they depend on the judgment of an editor, have to pay for printing up fliers or go through the effort of demonstrating in public places to be heard. A few clicks on a keyboard and the whole world is exposed to what they have to say.

But some is bad. Publicly putting out information about other individuals, companies, nonprofit organizations or agencies is taking on a responsibility. It’s not the same as talking off the top of your head or sharing second-hand information with your husband over dinner.

Information is power and misinformation is destructive power.

Gladly, even on the Internet, newspaper websites are very popular places for people to get information, even more than blogs. Is this because they have more information or better information? Is it more credible? Is it more interesting?
One reason is that since the early 20^th Century, newspapers have a standard for verifying that the information they put out is accurate, and so they are more trusted. One way newspapers add credibility to the information they put out is to find out from the subject of a piece if the information they have is accurate or to give them an opportunity to explain what they did and why.

Second-hand information about someone is not credible and must be verified by that individual. “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out,” so the journalism saying goes. And reporters who learn their trade in college hear many accounts of the stories that seemed so clearly right end up being wrong, due to lack of verification.

And newspapers attribute where they got the information. Even if they use an anonymous source, they describe why that anonymous source is reliable.

And fairness, courtesy and providing helpful information to readers requires that the reporter give the subject of a story an opportunity to tell his side. It’s also important for the reader to know this explanation so they too can act appropriately or form a well-informed opinion.

It didn’t take long when I was the budding reporter to learn there are always two sides to a story, and what I was told by one side was not always accurate. Or sometimes what seemed wrong made a lot more sense when I talked to the other side. Sometimes I misunderstood and was glad I got clarification. I found sometimes I was given just part of the story. I found motives were questioned because one side did not have all the information the other side did. When I spoke to the one accused, the one whose motives were questioned, I found out what they know, and then their actions made a lot more sense.

Happened again and again and again and again.

When I took on the responsibility of reporting (publicly giving information about another) I gave up the luxury of believing second-hand information. I gave up forming opinions after only hearing one side. This was not two friends gossiping over tea. I took on a responsibility, a duty, and I tried to be responsible in carrying that out.

Recently, a long-time Associated Press reporter put out story of a candidate based on information in the deposition of a lawsuit. The person in the lawsuit was identified by initials. The reporter was told by a second-hand source that the person was the candidate with the same initials. It was defamatory.

Did he try to verify that, as journalism standards require? Halfheartedly. He called the candidate or candidate’s people and didn’t get an immediate response. He did not give them time to respond to his inquiry before sending in the story. The editor trusted the judgment of this long-time reporter and put the story out.

They were wrong. The story was wrong. The person mentioned in the lawsuit was not the candidate, and they would have known that had they waited just two hours. The reporter and two editors were fired.

This incident shows that newspapers have standards that make their information more credible.  Even when the reporter did try to go to the source, he did not live up to the standards because he put out unverified defamatory information.

Should bloggers be held to the same standards? If they want to be seen as credible and avoid being sued for libel, they should. If someone is reporting information to the public about someone else, they become a reporter. Doesn’t matter if they also include their opinions. Doesn’t matter if they do it in print, over radio or by Internet or video. It’s the act, not the title or medium or pay that makes someone a reporter.

Recently, one of my clients has been the topic of some bloggers. Some of the information is defamatory and inaccurate. But what I can’t get over is that these individuals were either making stuff up or reporting second-hand information without verification or without contacting my client.

Not only is this damaging, but it distracts from my client’s work, it takes up time and resources in my client determining how to respond, causes stress and misleads the public. But above all of this, it hurts to the point of tears.

Do these bloggers not know the power they hold? Do they not know the responsibility they have to verify before putting out this information? Do they not understand the difference between reporting a supposed fact and giving opinions? Do they not know from training or experience that second-hand sources are not reliable? Do they not care about being fair? Are they really that calloused? Are they so caught up in pushing their agenda that they just don’t care if they have it wrong? Is it based on malice? Why would they not go to the source and verify or find out why? If not courtesy or curiosity, wouldn’t fairness and sense of responsibility require this?

If my fellow reporters and other bloggers could share their insights on this, please share them with me. It’s puzzling.

What should the reader do? As I thought of answering this myself, I wondered what others thought readers should do or not do when they see unattributed, defamatory and unverified information in blogs. Should they pass it on? Should they challenge the blogger? Or, should they just stop reading that blog? Or does everyone know you can’t believe unverified information in blogs so it doesn’t matter? What do you say?