> And it brings up all manner of ethical grey areas: is blogging journalism?
I believe the crux of the problem is that 'influential bloggers' want all the credibility of journalists ("we're writing and reporting on things!"), without any of the responsibility ("we're just blogging our opinions!").
This is what leads to situations like below:
Then there's the post in December where MG [...] thought he'd uncovered some kind of huge conspiracy when he accused Google's Android chief, Andy Rubin, of deleting a tweet. A few days later Siegler had to recant (sans apology, of course) when it turned out that, um, nope, Rubin hadn’t done that. Of course there’s a simple way to avoid bonehead moves like this — you do the reporting before you publish the accusation, not after.
There already are bloggers with the credibility of journalists (and more) who assume all of the responsibility (and more). We all know this and read these people all day every day.
Dan Lyons is not one of them (SCO), and neither is MG, but MG (and more) is just telling us he is neither a good VC nor journalist, but his (and his friends') wallet would like you to think he was.
I believe the crux of the problem is that 'influential bloggers' want all the credibility of journalists ("we're writing and reporting on things!"), without any of the responsibility ("we're just blogging our opinions!").
This is what leads to situations like below:
Then there's the post in December where MG [...] thought he'd uncovered some kind of huge conspiracy when he accused Google's Android chief, Andy Rubin, of deleting a tweet. A few days later Siegler had to recant (sans apology, of course) when it turned out that, um, nope, Rubin hadn’t done that. Of course there’s a simple way to avoid bonehead moves like this — you do the reporting before you publish the accusation, not after.