Blogging is a Container
After taking some time to think about the ethics of blogging as written about in my last post, I have come the following conclusions.
Blogging as a form of expression does not neatly fit into an existing category like journalism, editorial, fiction, diary, or non-fiction
Blogging is a super category or container for all other forms of expression, but with the attribute of linking and often an attraction to a sense of nowness.
If a blog is a written by a professional journalist and purports to be an accurate account of the facts it should be held up to the same cannon of ethics used by journalists.
If the blog is fiction, it should be held up to the same ethical conventions regarding fictional writing.
To regard blogging as a form unto itself with it’s own conventions, i.e. don’t edit later, always be perfectly self revealing is to limit the possibility of expression.
To make rules for blogs seems about as useful to me as making rules about what can be put on paper. We declare that all words published on wood pulp must follow journalistic ethics. Seems silly doesn’t it.
Perhaps this diagram explains what I am trying to get across better.
