This is the part where I argue against Lisa… (it’ll all make more sense if you read Lisa Hoffmann’s post about the battle between transparency and responsibility).
Lisa is right about our tendency as a species to withhold information from others. Where that instinct comes from is beyond me, but it’s kind of irrelevant. The fact is, we do it. And I’ll also agree that it is often (though not always) destructive.
But I disagree on many points of what follows those opening paragraphs.
First, I’m not sure bloggers are looking out for us. If politicians, corporate executives, husband and wives lie or withhold information, why should I trust a blogger to have any more integrity? Aren’t bloggers, despite all our lemming-like recitations of “Transparency! Authenticity!,” just as human as politicians, executives and spouses? Aren’t we bloggers just as susceptible to the same fears, anxieties, territorialism, greed, selfishness and other motivators?
I, too, *know* Jeremiah Owyang. Although, I’ve never met him, never spoken with him, never broken bread with him. In fact, all I really *know* of Jeremiah is that he blogs on topics that interest me, that his point-of-view often is the same as mine, and that when we do disagree, I believe with some certainty that we’ll conduct ourselves with decorum.
But trust him to look out for my best interests? No. Why should I?
And to compare Jeremiah’s unsubstantiated musings (which, I concede, are founded in fact) to Jon Stewart’s interview with Jim Cramer is a stretch (as an aside, isn’t it a shame that we have to count on Jon Stewart to do what “real” journalists are supposed to do?). Jon Stewart cited facts. He used no anonymous sources. He asked questions. He let Cramer (sometimes) rebut.
Jeremiah, on the other hand, issued a call to action before he had full information.
The “I tried to call them but they didn’t get back to me” approach is, at best, incomplete journalism. What do we know about how hard Owyang tried to get Forrester’s perspective? He reached out to them on Twitter. Good. He scheduled a briefing. Good. But he didn’t let Mzinga tell their story before he began Tweeting. Why? Why not wait until the briefing? What are the compelling reasons for raising red flags immediately? Are there compelling reasons not to wait until you’ve gathered all the facts? What good or harm comes from reporting before the Forrester briefing? What good or harm comes from waiting?
I’m not suggesting that delay/withhold is always the best course of action. The reporting of Woodward & Bernstein on the Watergate scandal, for example, was vital to the health of democracy. The story that brought down Nixon wasn’t a single, all-at-once article, though. The story unfolded day-by-day on the pages of the Washington Post. Had they waited until they had “all” of the facts, the story may never have been told. There are times when withholding information is bad.
But…
There are times when withholding information is good. What if instead of hearing rumors about Mzinga’s financial troubles, Owyang had heard rumors of U.S. soldiers performing a military exercise near Baghdad. Should he report the information? Should he “let adults make their own decisions based on the facts”? If some of the adults turned out to be terrorists who then ambushed the soldiers, would we still be grateful that he didn’t withhold the information?
In matters of life-and-death, we’re willing to waive off transparency and full-reporting. But what about less extreme cases? If Owyang had been proved wrong, would you be as supportive of his early reporting? What if had been only partially right? And if he were proved wrong and issued a retraction, would it matter? Would enough people notice the retraction? Would the damage already have been done? What if his information had been mostly accurate — not entirely — and had led to further troubles at Mzinga and more job losses? Would we still embrace his heroic willingness to not withhold information?
The Owyang/Mzinga story is not relevant as an isolated case, but as a symbolic case. Jeremiah is an analyst, paid by Forrester, and as such is not bound to the same ethical code. But should he be? Should we ALL be? Bloggers (and Twitterers) now perform many of the same acts (gathering and disseminating information) that journalists perform. And yet most of us have had NO formal training as journalists. We aren’t educated on topics like objectivity, fairness, journalistic ethics and accuracy. We understand these principles, but only in a casual sort of way.
When we blog or Tweet, our audience doesn’t always differentiate between Jeremiah Owyang and Tom Brokaw. To most readers, they (we) are just people from whom we heard the news. And if we’re not bound by the same standards as journalists (such that they exist), we risk doing a TREMENDOUS disservice to the public.
I don’t care that Owyang got it right this time. Good for him. He could have just as easily gotten it wrong. Or he could just have easily have written it because a Forrester client pressured him to. I doubt it, but I don’t know for sure. And until I do, I’m not going to assume that “bloggers are looking out for me.”
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