define: ethics a talk about ethics and blogging

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define ethicsa talk about ethics and blogging

• K.G. Schneider
• Free Range Librarian
• http//freerangelibrarian.com
• kgs_at_bluehighways.com
• Internet Librarian 2005

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Why Ethics Matter (Micro)

• Ethics as a Value
• Through your blog, you represent yourself and
  everything youre connected with, including
  librarianship
• For most readers, you are the last stop between
  the reader and the truth

• Ethics as a Strategy
• Information has a long half-life
• The rules of ethics are also the rules of
  self-preservation
• The blogosphere can be cruel
• The biblioblogosphere can be crueler

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Why Ethics Matter (Macro)

• The harder we work to make the world a moral
  place, the better it is for everyone
• Books are for use we are a profession defined
  by our concern for others

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Five Rules to Blog By

1. Transparency
2. Fairness
3. Cite it
4. Get it right
5. Admit mistakes

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Two Other Codes of Ethics

• Rebecca Blood
• Publish as fact only that which you believe to be
  true
• If material exists online, link to it when you
  reference it
• Publicly correct any misinformation
• Write each entry as if it could not be changed
  add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry
• Disclose any conflict of interest
• Note questionable and biased sources

• Cyberjournalist.net
• Be honest and fair
• Minimize harm
• Be accountable

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Five Things Not To Say

1. Its only a blog
2. So-and-so does it
3. Everyone understood what I meant
4. They can always look it up
5. Nobody trusts the Web anyway

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define transparency

• An activity is transparent if all information
  about it is open and freely available
• 
  -- Wikipedia
• For most blogs, we want to know what the
  writers starting point is.
• David Weinberger, author of Small Pieces Loosely
  Joined

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1. Transparency
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Transparency Tools

• A clear About page
• Can be humorous
• Must be true
• Full disclosure about conflicts, biases, or
  vested interests
• A commitment to honesty about who you are and
  what drives your writing

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The Blogosphere is Skeptical

• Talon Press correspondent Jeff Gannon was
  known for his friendly questions, including
  asking Bush at last month's news conference how
  he could work with Democrats who seem to have
  divorced themselves from reality.

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Lack of Transparency Can Catch Up With You
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Transparency can be Strategic
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Transparency Minimizes Fisking

• Fisking The act of critiquing, often in minute
  detail, an article, essay, argument, etc. with
  the intent of challenging its conclusion or
  theses by highlighting logical fallacies and
  incorrect facts

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2. Cite it
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define citation

• The pertinent information needed to find the
  full text of a publication.
• Florida State University Library

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Bad Citations

• that latter thought will reinforce the opinion
  of the Blog Person who included Michael Gorman
  is an idiot in his reasoned critique, because no
  opinion that comes from someone who is
  antidigital (in the words of another Blog
  Person) could possibly be correct.
• Michael Gorman, Revenge of the Blog People,
  Library Journal, 2/15/2005

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Tips for Good Citation

• Link to and name your sources and documentation
• Avoid anonymous sources
• Always check a secondary source (e.g. linking to
  a blog that says the moon is made of green
  cheese). You are responsible for what your blog
  says!

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3. Get it right
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define getting it right

• The quality of being near to the true value
• wordnet.princeton.edu
• Maureen Dowd, 10/22/2005 Investigative
  reporting is not stenography

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Being Wrong has Consequences

• 100 days after the fall of Baghdad, none of the
  sensational allegations about chemical,
  biological, or nuclear weapons given to Miller
  have panned out, despite the furious
  crisscrossing of Iraq by U.S. weapons hunters.
• Jack Shafer, Slate, July
  2003

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There is nothing more pathetic than a librarian
who gets the facts wrong. Not even a New York
Times reporter who gets the facts wrong.
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How to Get It Right

• Check your facts
• Check your facts
• Check your facts
• Check your facts
• Dont publish until you check your facts
• Re-check your facts after you publish

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More Tips for Accuracy Sources

• Examine each source. Is it trustworthy? What
  motives does your source have? Who else relies
  (or does not rely) on your source?
• Dual-source whenever possible.
• Avoid anonymous sources.
• Link to your source.

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4. Be Fair
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define fairness

• The attitude of being just to all.
• World Health Organization
• Giving people an equal chance.
• Not letting partiality stand in the way of what
  is right.

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Fairness Tips

• Let a source know when he or she is on the
  record.
• You can be opinionated, but dont present opinion
  as fact.
• If you claim to be objective, then you better
  damn well present all sides of the issue.
• Let your readers comment (within reason).

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5. Admit Mistakes
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define mistake

• To choose wrongly
• Merriam Online
• Mistakes can be errors of judgment or errors of
  fact

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Bill Kellers Mea Culpa

• By waiting a year to own up to our mistakes, we
  allowed the anger inside and outside the paper to
  fester. If we had lanced the WMD boil earlier,
  we might have damped any suspicion that THIS
  time, the paper was putting the defense of a
  reporter above the duty to its readers.

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Addressing Mistakes in Blogs

• Be direct alert your readers of the error
• Add to or modify a post in such a way that the
  amendment can be compared to the original error
  (Italics, bolding, notifications,
  strike-throughs)
• Consider explaining how you made the error and
  why it will be harder for you to make this error
  the next time around

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Ethics Exception The Intentionally Unreliable
Narrator
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Ethics Exception April Foolery
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Ethics ExceptionWell-Known Humor Sites
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Last

• When in doubt,
• Do what you know to be right.