Call for voluntary code of practice

I called for a voluntary code of conduct for book bloggers a couple of weeks back. Now Tim Toulmin, the director of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) here in the UK, has called for something similiar for blogs in general.

Click to read the full article.

Click to read the PCC code of practice.

Comments

[litlove]

I think this is a very good idea indeed, and I'd happily sign up to it. The thing that's been so nice so far in my blog experience has been how polite and well-mannered visitors to my site have been. I know you fell foul of the rowdier elements, Kimbofo, and I imagine that must have changed the way you feel about putting your thoughts and ideas into a public arena. I'm sure it would change mine if I had had a similar experience.

[Equiano]

That's very interesting indeed - hadn't seen this before, so thanks for that.

[Isabel]

I like the idea. But, how can it be enforced? Can blogs be shut down?

[kimbofo]

Litlove, it's me wearing my journalist's hat again, but I think stuff like this is important. I quit a very good magazine job 18 months ago on the basis of my colleagues not understanding very basic ethics and continually writing very slip shod news stories that resulted in endless writs landing on my desk!

As for my recent online experience in which I attracted quite a bit of flak, I have to admit it caught me a little off-guard but it hasn't put me off blogging - if anything it's got me more interested than ever. I exercise a certain amount of self-censorship anyway (I've kept a personal blog - http://kimbofo.typepad.com - since 2001) to protect the privacy of my my family and friends and to prevent my colleagues tracking me down online, so I'm always fairly careful about what I say and how I say it.

Equinano, hope you find it useful.

Isabel, good question. That debate is yet to happen. But an international investigative body would have to be set up along the lines of the PCC here in the UK. I imagine one of the potential options in terms of redressing justified complaints would be to shut a blog down. But that would be a last resort. The PCC generally seeks the publication of a correction, apology, follow-up piece or letter. Most of this, however, would be irrelevant to book bloggers. I think any code for book bloggers would have to involve a section on conflicts of interest. With a few tweaks/modifications these points from the Australian Journalist Association Code of Ethics might be appropriate:

* Do not allow personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit to undermine your accuracy, fairness or independence.

* Disclose conflicts of interest that affect, or could be seen to affect, the accuracy, fairness or independence of your journalism. Do not improperly use a journalistic position for personal gain.

* Do not allow advertising or other commercial considerations to undermine accuracy, fairness or independence.

* Do your utmost to ensure disclosure of any direct or indirect payment made for interviews, pictures, information or stories.

They sound a bit heavy-handed, but you get the idea...

[Isabel]

In the US, many students think cheating is OK to get good grades and get admitted to the better universities.

Many of the people who blog belong to this age group.

So, the above Code of Ethics might be asking too much of them.

But, I like them! I have no problem with them.

[kimbofo]

Isabel, I don't think the US has a monopoly on cheating. It is everywhere. Which is why it's all the more important to fight the good fight!

[Brandon]

I like the idea of a code of ethics for bloggers is a good idea, but regulating it would be a headache. If I remember correctly, the article said 1.3 million things are posted daily. But don't blogging sites generally have their own code of ethics? I use Blogger, which has a feature that allows users to report questionable posts or blogs. I realize that's different from what the article was suggesting, but I also think users reporting blogs for pornography or hate crimes is a step in the right direction. And people generally have to "sign" an user-end license agreement before creating any kind of account (I don't remember if there was an user-end agreement when I started with Blogger). So I think the code is already there--sort of. It's enforcing it that's the issue.

But maybe it's simpler than it seems. Tweak the UELAs, trust people to report questionable content to the blog administrators, and let the administrators look into it. It could simply be done on a platform-to-platform basis, rather than the blogging community as a whole. That'd be more feasible, wouldn't it?

[kimbofo]

Brandon, I think the PCC man was hoping a code of ethics would prevent racism being spread on the internet.

I'm looking at it from a book bloggers perspective in terms of making our reviews/posts more transparent and maintaining our impartiality. So it's not something that would be enforced, but something you'd sign up to to demonstrate you weren't being influenced by viral marketing etc.

[patricia]

Kimbofo, an artist and writer by the name of Keri Smith had the same thing in mind when she created this site:

http://www.adfreeblog.org/

Perhaps you might like to create something similar, in reference to book blogging?

[kimbofo]

Patricia, thanks for the link. Certainly something for me to consider... when I've got some spare time!! ;)