Blogging Breeds Biters
An interesting confluence of events this week highlight the complexities of melding blogging with journalism.
First we learn, via Rohit Bhargava, that Business 2.0 editor Josh Quittner intends to mandate blogging by each reporter. Some of the suggested benefits include "continually updated content" … "giving journalists a personal stake [in building site traffic]" … and, Quittner suggests that "releasing some editorial control offers faster turnaround and more cutting edge work."
According to Rohit,
"[Someone asked Quittner] what this opening of control and influx of opinion might do to the credibility of the Business 2.0 brand. To answer, [Josh described] the necessity of integrating blogs into a mainstream publication’s culture … ‘blogs can create the essence of your brand, instead of detracting from it.’"
Ironically, in the same week, NetworkWorld dismissed journo-blogger Mike Rothman. Why? Because Rothman was candid about his minor gripes with a recent issue of the magazine. He bit the hand that fed him.
I wonder what Quittner will do, when & if a similar situation occurs with a Business 2.0 blogger?
This dilemma is bound to crop up with increasing frequency. Whether or not bloggers consciously attack their employers, by "releasing some editorial control" in order to gain "faster, cutting-edge work," publishers need to acknowledge and accept that that "edge" is sometimes going to cut the wrong way.
You can’t tell a blogger — even a salaried journo-blogger — that you are only interested in opinions that don’t impact your brand: by encouraging their blogging, you are tacitly relinquishing control of your brand.
In blogging, the dual requirements of Honesty & Speed trump the comforts of Safety. Let the Brand Police beware.
Tags: blogs, rohit+bhargava, business+2.0, network+world, mike+rothman
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Todd – this is a good point and will certainly be an issue for any organization looking to embrace blogging to the degree that Josh is with Business 2.0.
He did share a story during the presentation about when a journalist posted something that may not have been entirely appropriate and referenced how he dealt with the situation in an open and transparent way by discussing the post with the writer and offering a new perspective. There is risk involved in this tactic, but I came out of the session extremely impressed with his approach and ability to pull it off despite the potential issues.
I suspect we are looking at the early days of what will become a case study in marrying blogging with journalism.
Good points. And this increasingly blurry line between “journalism” and “citizen media blogging” will likely result in more legal cases challenging the different protections the group currently have.
That’s why all companies need a thorough communications policy in place, one that covers blogging. Companies should tolerate criticism — as long as it’s logical, constructive and not out-and-out bashing without cause. And, if an employee who blogs is critical of his/her employer and was part of the “problem,” he/she should admit it.
Mike
Todd – to be clear I took no “salary” from NetworkWorld. I was a freelance contributor providing a twice monthly column. And my post criticizing NWW’s article was on the blog of my security analyst business.
Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but to me “salaried” indicates that I work for no one else.
Thanks for the clarification, Mike.
FWIW, I use your case primarily as an example of what *could* happen (with more frequency, to boot), but, certainly it is important to be accurate when discussing other folks’ real lives! My apologies if this post caused any angst on that score.
Good luck, by the way!
Hi, Todd
Having been through a recent flap for offering polite criticism of an article by a print columnist, who took it personally and vastly overreacted at great length online for several days, here’s my take:
I think that if you’re going to get in a public online conflict or criticism situation, be consistently polite, professional, and clear about it — no matter how much abuse is hurled in your direction. Remember that what you say in any public venue will live on well past the heat of the moment, remain findable, and potentially reflect on you in situations you can’t even yet imagine.
I put that ethic into practice in this conflict, and I’m very glad I did.
Conflicts, disagreements, and controversies are unavoidable. It’s how you choose to handle them that matters in the long run. I don’t think organizations should beware of working with people who occasionally get into conflicts, as long as they show good judgment in handling themselves during the flap. In fact, I’d personally be wary of working with someone who actively avoided public conflict or controversy. They’re probably not strong enough to handle the real world of conversational media.
IMHO, of course.
- Amy Gahran
Great points Todd. I moved my blog recently from a “corporate” but stand alone site to a “journalistic” site, ZDNET, thinking I would get lots more exposure. I started to get comments about my “bad journalism” for using phrases like “I read somewhere”. I tried to be more anal about citing references but my first reaction was “I’m a blogger, not a journalist!”. Being a blogger *and* a journalist poses some interesting dilemmas. Good luck to Quittner and his staff!
Say bad things about your employer at a bar and the wrong guy overhears, you’ll probably get canned.
Say bad things about your employer at a conference or meetup and the wrong guy overhears, you’ll probably get canned.
Say bad things about your employer on a blog, and magic pixie dust rains from the sky that spontaneously transforms your pretty stupid move into a cause celebre.
In the case of the NWW freelancer, there were ways he could’ve made his point without the accusations of “mediocrity.”
Sometimes restraint is a good thing. Sometimes it’s best to have a discussion in private before telling the whole world. It doesn’t mean you’re being *gasp* un-transparent.
Hate to tell y’all there’s no Easter Bunny, but them’s the facts.
I don’t disagree with you, Phil (except for the Easter Bunny comment, ‘natch).
It’s true, of course, that we need to be careful what we put out there, since it could always bite us in the ass.
But I think the bigger point (beyond Mike Rothman’s case) is that blogs = speed + opinion, and those two tenets are bound to clash on occassion, leading to weird results. Neither Speed nor Opinion fare well against Editorial Control and Brand Policing.
Forget about the fact that Rothman criticized NWW. What if he had a really mean opinion about one of NWW’s biggest advertisers? What if he decided to rant about the Bush Administration’s pursuit of privacy-infringing technologies? Could he have been fired? Should he have been? Would such posts have been any less controversial or troubling for NWW? Where do we draw the line?