Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact — very momentous to us in these times. Literature is our Parliament too. — Thomas Carlyle
Since 1841, when Carlyle wrote this in his On Heroes and Hero Worship, the media employed by the Fourth Estate — political journalists — have multiplied dramatically, adding photography and film, radio and TV to the list of tools with which it fulfills its primary purpose: shaping the public’s political attitudes. Along with these tools of the trade, journalists have developed professional standards and codes of ethics to distinguish themselves from hired and self-appointed propagandists whose purpose is similar. The common basis of these standards and codes is a dedication to the truth. As Eugene Meyers put it in his 1933 statement of principles governing the Washington Post, “The first mission of a newspaper is to tell the truth as nearly as the truth may be ascertained.”
Enter the notoriously untrustworthy Internet, the newest tool of would-be political journalists, and in particular, Blogcritics Magazine's Politics section — an irreverent, no-holds-barred blog zone, where writers have been provided space and support to engage in an array of literary blood sports, ranging from scoop news reporting, to advocacy, to expressing opinion and feelings — to propagandizing, which, for my purpose here, I define as passing fictions off as fact in the support of an argument.
Incidents of propagandizing, whether inadvertent or not, have led to unproductive and vicious arguments in Blogcritics' nether regions — the comments boards — sometimes escalating to the point of creating an uninviting atmosphere which has driven valuable contributors away, presumably in search of kinder, gentler or more honest venues for their comments and articles.
If protecting readers from propagandists is a priority, then, at a minimum, the editorial staff of the Politics section must: limit factual errors that appear in posted articles through some process of fact checking, promptly issue corrections for errors when they do get published and are brought to light, whenever possible ensure the validity of the writers' sources, as well as their proper attribution, and encourage veracity in news and opinion articles by discouraging the omission or distortion of critical facts.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Doug Hunter
Bad idea. Who is more qualified to determine what material I should access or what version of a story I should consider truth than me? Let me be my own judge.
Also, no one knows the truth about many important political issues. Was Bush a bumbling moron hellbent on avenging his dad when he got us into Iraq or was he a calculated liar hiding the evidence on WMD's or was he shilling for the oil companies trying to steal Iraq's oil or was he with good faith attempting to instill democracy in the middle east and shift power away from the radical Islamists?
Many claim to know the answer but in truth no one really knows and reality probably lies somewhere in the middle. Any person you pick for the job will have preconceived notions regarding what is 'truth' and these biases will demonstrate themselves in the content of these pages.
2 - Dan(Miller)
What Doug said.
I do become frustrated with articles and comments offering unsupported statements of dubious fact, but can deal with that frustration unassisted by a censor. It seems likely that most who read and post here can do so as well.
Dan(Miller)
3 - Mark Eden
Doug's objection is, wouldn't you know it, one that I agree with. Facts and veracity and all are tricky subjective things, but I'm not sure that the fact that there is no truth should hold us back.
Consider this my homage to Marthe Raymond who, if BC had had an ombudsman for her to turn to, might still be showering us with her unique perspective.
Have at it.
Mark
4 - Clavos
...Marthe Raymond who, if BC had had an ombudsman for her to turn to, might still be showering us with her unique perspective.
Well that settles it: No ombudsman.
That woman is the most crude, rude, impolite and low class person I've ever had the misfortune to run into.
The fact that she's obviously very bright and articulate only contrasted with her crudity, making her online persona that much more objectionable.
I'm glad she's gone; she really lowered the lowered the level of discourse.
5 - Dave Nalle
If BC had an ombudsman with power to go with the office, MR would have been booted for her constant misrepresentations and outright lies months before she was.
That aside, as I see it the problem with an ombudsman is that the concept is contrary to BC's character as a 'community' of writers.
Someone who checks all the articles for consistency and makes sure that they conform to a certain style and editorial perspective makes sense for a print newspaper or a website which is trying to imitate one, like Slate. There the role of an obudsman would be to put the stylistic and standards stamp of that publication on everything they publish.
That's not what BC is. As a community of writers, each writer is more responsible for the content and character of his or her work and the role of the editors is more neutral, assuring quality, but not controlling tone or content except in the most extreme cases. All editors do some fact checking, but basically that's left up to the writers who will stand or fall based on the quality of the work they do.
We also don't have an editorial stance or perspective for someone like an ombudsman to enforce. BC is politically neutral, not because it imposes neutrality of viewpoint on its writers, but because it doesn't exclude writers based on their politics or perspective. We welcome diversity and contrasting opinions - with the occasional exception of those whose positions fall outside of a very broad scope of what is acceptable for public discourse.
Diversity is one of the great strengths of BC. If you want uniformity, go to Democratic Underground or RedState and march with the zombies.
Dave
6 - Mark Eden
I'll simply repeat the Seib quote in response to Dave's overstatement of the job of an ombudsman:
His job, as he sees it, is to represent the Post’s readers and to react to the paper himself as a reader. He handles complaints from readers on matters of fairness, accuracy, balance and professional standards. In addition, he criticizes the paper on the basis of his own observations.
His 'power' is diplomatic.
Clavos, had Marthe had someone whose job was to represent her pov then things might not have gotten out of hand as they did. That you dislike her is understandable. I could never tell whether she was more than a propagandist for Chavez, but then she never wrote articles.
Mark
7 - Dave Nalle
Mark, I see you didn't bother to read the bulk of my comment. Let me sum it up for you in the context of the Seib quote: Where did you get the peculiar idea that this was the Washington Post or even trying to be anything like it?
Dave
8 - Matthew T. Sussman
Coming up next on "Eye on BC"
Our nation's fish: do they have enough bicycles?
9 - Mark Saleski
If BC had an ombudsman with power to go with the office, MR would have been booted for her constant misrepresentations and outright lies months before she was.
if bc had an ombudsman with power to go with the office dave, YOU would have been booted long ago.
man, the politics section is just drenched with irony.
10 - Ruvy
Mark,
Go read the articles from the earliest days of this site. A good many of them are mere notes leading to a link where the main story is to be found - much the kind of thing one finds at a blog site. Now you need to write a minimum of 300 words, and 80% of those words have to be the author's. A minimum of 300 words requires an article, a series of coherent thoughts by an author.
The readers then judge that series of coherent thoughts by their comments - or lack of them. When I first found this site, it was common to "comment pimp", trying to inflate the number of comments received on a given article. This was because there was a listing of the number of comments by each individual on the right side of the screen. If you look in the right place, you still can see remnants of that old format here.
It is still found at Desicritics.org., the South Asian daughter of Blogcritics Magazine.
At bottom, this is still a community of writers at a huge blog-site.
Finally, along with all the other arguments against the idea, there is still the basic issue of money. All these ideas cost money, and from my point of view as a writer here, before we institute ombudsmen to make sure that all the ducks quacking here quack the same way, we should be paying those who really contribute to the magazine: this means the editors first, and then the writers.
If I'm lying through my teeth in my articles here, others who also know how to read and write English will call me on it.
11 - Mark Eden
Now now Dave, no need to go getting insulting. Of course I read your comment. Oddly enough, I am looking for ways to protect BC's diversity that, as I see it, is in peril. When things pick up speed here again, how do you propose to handle readers who feel slighted or attacked when they try to 'take care of business' in the comments?
Marthe's behavior was criticized for driving folks away. Is she the only one guilty of this?
Where did you get the peculiar idea that this was the Washington Post or even trying to be anything like it?
...you mean like honest?
Mark
12 - Dave Nalle
if bc had an ombudsman with power to go with the office dave, YOU would have been booted long ago.
Mark, I don't know what I ever did to offend you. I haven't come to the music section and started bashing you for your execrable taste in music. If you disagree with my political viewpoints that's fine, but why do you feel it necessary to pop in periodically, launch a personal attack out of the blue and then slink away?
Dave
13 - Ruvy
That comment was aimed at Mark Eden, by the way, not Mark Saleski, guys.
As for Marthe Raymond, had there been an ombudsman with teeth, the comment threads would be less
vicious, nasty and insultingtasty and interesting to read, and Marthe never would have felt the need to adopt the persona she did here. Remember SHARK? He would have swum away from here a long time before he did....She would still be beating Chávez's drum, and the individual she hurt would not have been.
14 - Mark Eden
I was thinking of Shark for ombudsman.
15 - Ruvy
I was thinking of Shark for ombudsman.
Mark, Shark was the funniest commenter here. He gave real entertainment value to go with his nastiness. Forcing him to read my puerile attempts to imitate him would be cruel torture indeed, not to mention depriving us of a few good laughs as we curse at what he writes....
It's bad enough for the comments editor we have here, Chris Rose. Poor guy has to slog through each and every one of these comments. I almost feel sorry for him.
Almost.
16 - Clavos
Clavos, had Marthe had someone whose job was to represent her pov...
It seems to me, Mark, that that's her job, and MR in particular, needs no one to help her on that score.
But, I don't want to turn this into a discussion of one individual. I agree with the previous posters (particularly Doug), who say that having an ombudsman to determine what is truth and what is not, begins to feel more like censorship, and from a narrower POV than we have now, as such determinations would be restricted to the ideas of one individual, rather than letting the marketplace (as it were) of Blogcritcs writers and commenters determine it.
For evidence of the efficacy of our present system, one has only to read the numerous comments posted any time someone is perceived as disseminating falsehoods.
17 - Mark Saleski
it wasn't a personal attack dave, but a statement of fact.
and your political viewpoint has nothing to do with it.
and for the record, i'm hardly alone in this opinion.
18 - Dave Nalle
Yes, but you're unique in not attempting to back up or explain why you hold the opinion. I can respect and even learn from a negative opinion of my work or myself which has at least some rationale behind it, or a basis in some fundamental disagreement. Sniping is just annoying and pointless.
Dave
19 - Matthew T. Sussman
"it wasn't a personal attack dave, but a statement of fact. "
Wait. It's a statement of fact that Dave would have been fired as politics editor if we had an ombud?
20 - zingzing
i think its the comments section that keeps most of the writers mostly honest most of the time. writers on the right and left do try to get away with stuff, and that's when we see the ridiculously long comment threads. especially in political coverage, no one is ever going to be 100% happy with one ombudsman. that's why there are 50-100 of us, all acting against each other.
and sussman, i think mark s. was saying that dave would have been booted for "misrepresentations and outright lies," etc. etc. i doubt that dave thinks of what he writes as those things, but there have been many times where he's said something that's quite contrary to the actual truth of the situation. that said, i say that as a leftie loon, while he's a slobbering gun nut. when he agrees with me, he hits upon certain truths. when he doesn't, he's a liar and a cheat.
21 - Lumpy
So the author's goal here would be to make bc as generic and soulless as USAToday?
22 - Mark Eden
...having an ombudsman to determine what is truth and what is not...
Again, that not the job description that I had in mind.
Mark
23 - Dr Dreadful
i say that as a leftie loon, while he's a slobbering gun nut. when he agrees with me, he hits upon certain truths. when he doesn't, he's a liar and a cheat.
...Or what's known in media theory as 'selective perception'.
I don't agree that we need an ombudsman. I tend to the opinion that if a site such as ours wishes to pursue a policy of light-handedness in regard to the comments, then we must expect a certain thickness of skin from our commenters. If some people can't take the tone, then they probably don't belong here even if their contributions are potentially valuable. That said, I'm not advocating actively driving anyone away. It should be their choice entirely.
What was that somebody once said about not lingering around intolerably warm cooking facilities...?
For the record, I don't agree with the banishment of Marthe Raymond (Moonraven). Although she was undoubtedly the nastiest commenter ever to haunt these boards (I include Shark in that), there was, I found, a specific way to deal with her that served to draw her venom somewhat. In case she's ever allowed back, I won't divulge what that was.
(And it was not any of the following: being nice to her, agreeing with her, addressing her arguments rationally. Any or all of those were likely to redouble her wrath!)
BTW, I think Archie's month is up. How do we unban him?
24 - Dr Dreadful
@ #21:
Never thought I'd say this, but: Lumpy, Amen!
25 - Mark Eden
I never realized that ombudsmen rendered news outlets censored and soulless.
Ah well...having driven Dreadful to religion and into Lumpy's arms is an accomplishment of sorts I guess.