At the End of the Day, More Rules

A theme that continues to come up during this conference is defining the rules that govern a blog. Some say the great thing about a blog is that there are no rules! The essense of a blog, John Amato from Crooksandliars.com says, is that it allows autonomy, independence.

“Nobody tells me what to do,” Amato said yesterday, when explaining why he prefers to post video to his site rather than to YouTube.

Maybe bloggers have independence and autonomy from mainstream media, but they keep throwing out more and more rules.

After I wrote my first blog for Pop+Politics, I was told that it needed to be more conversational, looser, breaking away from structure. It should read more like an email to my friends than an article for my USC Annenberg class. But isn’t that structure? Isn’t being told that you must use a conversational tone a rule? Where’s my autonomy? What if I love the inverted pyramid so much, I want to use it all the time?

James Joyner from OutsidetheBeltway.com said yesterday, “If you’ve got an editor, you’re not a blog.”

Do you agree with that?

Different media outlets have entities that they call blogs, and some are edited, some are not. Is Joyner right, and if there is an editor, they should rename their (so-called) blog?

Joyner also said that if you spend days on it, it’s not a blog.

Ok, I get the idea: raw material is best, or it’s at least the latest trend. But how do you create a rule like this? What if you spend hours on a posting? Does it get to be a blog then? What if you go back and edit it the next day? What if you spend days thinking about it?

More importantly, what is the purpose of creating rules for blogs? Is it to teach new blog users - like me - how to better communicate in this medium? Do these rule-makers have evidence that a conversational tone, lots of links, some contentious commentary and unedited material that was written in less than a day is most effective?

Or are the rules created because blogs are becoming mainstream?

Many of the best blogs have editors. To say having an editor means you don’t have a blog is nearly as ludicrous as the whole “bloggers can’t be journalists” meme.

I write for a large group blog (LAist) and I admit that as cheesy as it may be, it’s kind of fun to write in the royal “We” and to maintain a conversational tone consistent with other contributors—most of whom you’ve never met.

Fortunately, my editor (Tony Pierce) is unlike any editor on Earth as he is almost completely hands-off while being positive, encouraging, and able to “stroke” the writers when necessary.

However, in other situations where I’ve been editor, I can’t say I’ve been nearly as nice to work with (and I don’t know if I would want to work for me)!

As editor of the Public Diplomacy Blog, I took source verification, balance, and AP rules very seriously, especially considering the subject matter, and the fact that many contributors (ranging from a former Foreign service officer who resigned over the Iraq War to a Nixon appointee who headed USIA’s Worldnet) were casual about blog posting and also occasionally took some strong (and hard to factually support) positions.

So, I guess, I’d conclude that if a blogger is serious about journalism and being read as legitimate journalism, it couldn’t hurt to have an editor.

If journalistic integrity is not a core principle of the publication or blog, than proceed as one will, but the blogosphere always knows best and calls out mistakes and misstatements.