Blogging Heads?

Mark Federman asks which will be more influential, the TV version or the blog version, if news anchors start blogging.

It reminds me of a thought I had the other day about the debate over "blogger ethics". One part of the debate suggests that bloggers need to follow more strict journalistic standards, and need to be held accountable for their statements. This brings to light the fact that many "real journalists" fail miserably to follow any sort of standards themselves, and recent cases make this plain. Blogging has made it apparent that ALL of our media have inherent biases, including the network news, despite their best efforts to maintain an appearance of impartiality.

So it seems to me that attempting to adopt the failing journalistic standards of the old media is completely backwards. Bloggers would do well to focus more on developing their voice and point of view rather than attempting to remain impartial. Blogs develop context over time, through archives of articles, links, and design choices, as well as the communities that develop around them. Readers are able to discern the point of view of the blogger to help interpret their articles. This is not possible with the traditional media, where biases are intentionally hidden from view. Given that choice, it is no surprise that people would choose blogs over the networks to get their news.

So rather than copying the traditional media by attempting to hide their biases (which is ultimately impossible) bloggers should expose their point of view as much as they can. This lowers the threshold for new readers, allowing them to make quick judgments about articles. I predict that it will be less and less common for popular blogs to be hosted by mysterious pseudonyms, and more bloggers taking the bold step of "outing" themselves into the new electronic world.