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April 24, 2005
After the Fall
Posted by Dana Blankenhorn
There are many important lessons to be had from the mistake I made last week. (The expulsion from Eden is a detail of the Sistine Chapel. The file comes courtesy the Web Art Gallery.)
I'm going to divide this into lessons to bloggers (including myself) and lessons applicable to site managers or editors. And there's a special section at the end just for you.
Let the scourging begin!
- You can't erase it. Once it's published, the RSS feed goes out. Remember Ollie North's Clue from 20 years ago -- hitting delete doesn't mean it's deleted. Make your corrections on the item itself, at the top.
- What's your hurry? Unless you're competing with CNN, get it right first. This is especially true when your value-add is analysis.
- It's a wide wonderful Web out there. Use it. Check your facts and insert the links into the piece.
- Check the dates on the facts you check. There are still many pages out there identifying Evan Williams as being head of Blogger. This doesn't make them right now, even if they were right at the time.
- You can lose years worth of credibility on one moment of stupidity. That's not fair, but those are the facts. Everyone who likes you will tell one friend. Everyone who hates you will tell 10.
- Be especially careful when going outside your comfort zone, the beat you actually cover. Double-check everything, and try to get a source. E-mail is easy. The phones still work.
- Assume everything you write will be read by someone who neither likes you nor trusts you, and act accordingly.
The lessons for editors are especially important, because it's a new job. Editing is what turns blogs into journalism, and a lot can be done after the fact.
Michelangelo could only imagine Hylton with a beard, but I think I put the gray there. From CalPoly.
- There's no time for analysis. Every minute of indecision is another minute of damage. Either be ready to make a decision 24-7 or appoint someone else to do it.
- Create a process by which these decisions can be revisited. Maybe you'll find you over-reacted. Maybe you'll find you weren't firm enough. They'll be time enough for counting when the dealing's done.
- Communicate. Get with the person who made the mistake right away, and get with your readers right away.
- Transparency is key. The more open and available your process is, the more trust you will gain from it.
- Credibility is the coin of the realm. Every mistake, by anyone, is a huge withdrawal from the corporate credibility account. The faster you accept the hit the faster the withdrawals stop.
There are also lessons here for readers and the Web:
- This isn't high school. There's no need to act like it is.
- The difference between blogging and journalism lies in how mistakes are dealt with.
- If you're unsure about what you're reading, use the links in the story to verify the words. No links? Trouble.
- The more sources you have on a story -- the more you trust the whole blogosphere rather than any one person in it -- the more likely you are to get the truth.
- You're not perfect, either. Try a kind e-mail if you see something wrong. Or a quick comment.
- The IN in Internet is short for INtimate. There are people behind every screen on the Web. And many of them want to hear from you.
Long story short, you're a part of the process. That's what can make blogging better than journalism. It's open source and transparent. So please feel free to add your own rules, to criticize those I've written, and (if you like) to dump on me further.
The last is part of my healing process. I'll appreciate it.
Comments (14)
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Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for over 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the "Interactive Age Daily" for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age, and dozens of other publications over the years.
1. Chris Beck on April 24, 2005 11:40 AM writes...
"# The difference between blogging and journalism lies in how mistakes are dealt with. "
Good to know that there is only one difference.
Anyway, apology accepted. Now, on with the journalism^wblogging
Permalink to Comment2. memer on April 25, 2005 12:29 PM writes...
I'm no expert on anything, really. On a few topics, I know more than the average bear but there are gazillions more who have deeper experience and/or training. That includes PR. So I don't have any real authority to say what I'm about to say. In blogging I have no purpose but for ones I've egotistically invented for myself. My favourite is guy-who-says-the-painful-things-anyone-else-with-sense-would-shut-up-about.
It is in that context I open my pie hole now.
1. It's not about checking things, Dana. You should have KNOWN. Ev, for someone who claims to cover the online world as a business journalist, is a BIG ASS, GIANT whopper of a name.
It's flabbergastingly indefensible that you did not already know he left the biggest blogging company in the world. You didn't have to know the day of. One could even excuse if you somehow missed it in the first seven days. But how in the world could you have missed it over 6 months!? In other words, it's your BUSINESS to know that.
2. Yes, obviously, it casts serious doubt now on whatever you have to say going forward. I mean, what the hell do you know, goes the giggle.
3. It also potentially casts some doubt on the authority of other writers in the Corante stable. What other "winners" have they got here? It's not good for business.
4. It sez here you have to seriously consider resigning. It shores up respect and solves a potential problem for Corante.
5. Consider narrowing your business journalism patrol for a while. And should you report or give commentary?
6. You're probably a swell guy. But unfortunately you has to pay dues for serious errors in judgement. Don't worry, you can come back. Ask Marv Albert.
Permalink to Comment3. memer on April 25, 2005 03:37 PM writes...
Got an email from Dana. I won't release the contents as I'm not quite a complete ratbastard. But i will add one more point.
7. Dana may not be up on some things he really oughta, but you have to give him his due: he's a stand up guy. What that's worth for an online magazine that purports to be, "a trusted, unbiased source on technology, science and business that’s authored by highly respected thinkers, commentators and journalists; read by many of the sector's top entrepreneurs, executives, funders and followers; and is helping to lead the emergence of blogging as an influential and important form of reportage, analysis and commentary" is, I suppose, debatable.
Permalink to Comment4. Matt Haughey on April 25, 2005 05:30 PM writes...
btw, on the original post, the photo was from the NY Times, Nick Denton just poached it and put it somewhere on his site.
Permalink to Comment5. djQuickTip on April 25, 2005 06:59 PM writes...
"Everyone who likes you will tell one friend. Everyone who hates you will tell 10."
This statement is wrong and you have fallen victim to one of your own points in this post. I don't want you to lose years worth of credibility on this issue so I'll just ignore it and not tell anyone.
When I see a better post, I will inform more than 10 people.
Permalink to Comment6. matt on April 25, 2005 08:06 PM writes...
I think you did the best thing you could do. Admitting you made a mistake, learning from it, and moving on.
Good job.
Permalink to Comment7. Patrick Grote on April 25, 2005 09:29 PM writes...
I didn't know, still don't know you, but know of you.
Your mistake was hilarious. I got a good chuckle out of it.
What I am impressed with is how you dealt with it. It takes a solid person to handle a mistake like you have with this piece.
Nice job!
Permalink to Comment8. Kafkaesquí on April 25, 2005 10:32 PM writes...
"Anyway, apology accepted."
I don't see an apology here. But then this is not a situation that requires one; just a simple statement of how one screwed up. This is a bit more than that...
By the way, there's one (and perhaps only) important lesson to learn here: When you make a mistake just admit it, and take the lumps that come with it. That at least helps separate the grownups from the high schoolers.
Permalink to Comment9. Mark Wubben on April 26, 2005 05:01 AM writes...
djQuickTip, I think Dana was refering to this specific case, not any posts in general.
Permalink to Comment10. Randy Charles Morin on April 26, 2005 01:18 PM writes...
Myself, I have to deal with incompetence on a daily basis. I just wish people would get fired once in awhile when they prove their incompetence beyond a doubt. But, I guess when your true colors show, you can always just apologize.
Permalink to Comment11. Mike D. on April 26, 2005 03:06 PM writes...
Yeah, I don't see an apology in there either... which is the first thing you'd expect to see when someone so violently tries to impale someone else for doing something they aren't even doing.
Oh well. Just another reason to only read the people you trust. Dana isn't one of them at this point.
Permalink to Comment12. Dimitar Vesselinov on April 26, 2005 08:45 PM writes...
Technology Review: 7 of 10 articles failed fact-checking
"I'm late to the party again, but I just found last week's independent report at Technology Review. They hired Susan Rasky, a Berkeley journalism prof, to verify the sources for ten stories written for TR by Michelle Delio, whose work for TR, InfoWorld, and Wired News was challenged a month ago. In the end, Rasky's team was only able to locate sources and verify quotes for three of the ten stories. These aren't sources claiming they were quoted out of context. These are either sources who say they didn't talk to the reporter, or sources who may not exist.
I'm not going to make excuses for Michelle, but the larger problem is the lack of fact checking at online publications. Wired magazine has a small team of full-time "research editors" who drive writers and editors crazy aiming for. Wired News, Slate, and most other online publications - including Technology Review's website - require their writers to agree contractually to be responsible for their own fact checking. You don't have to be a supergenius to spot the problems: (a) Writers are expected to spot their own mistakes. (b) They're trusted, but not verified. At the least, it leads to unintentional goofs in honest writing. At the worst, it makes it easy for dishonest writers to cheat. At the very very worst, it leads to monkeyfishing."
http://paulboutin.weblogger.com/2005/04/25#a1212
Permalink to Comment13. Russell Buckley on April 27, 2005 12:39 AM writes...
Dana
You aren't the first person to record a mistake in writing, contrary to popular opinion. I read your stuff because it makes me think, not because I think you're infallible.
But I am interested in one of your points here:
"The difference between blogging and journalism lies in how mistakes are dealt with."
I wondered what you meant by that.
Is it a vote FOR blogging in that most bloggers would have taken the route of writing immediately: UPDATE at the bottom of the story, saying something along the lines that of course Ev had left but the fact remains that Blogger has lost its way.
Or are you suggesting that journalism is better in some way, as it normally deals with mistakes better?
Anyway, yes accuracy is important. But I think we should be a little more forgiving as a community when someone screws up and admits it. Let's just move on and leave the corporate and personal breast beating behind.
Russell
Permalink to Comment14. nick sweeney on April 28, 2005 05:07 AM writes...
This post reminds me of the classic definition of chutzpah: 'A man who murders his parents, then asks for clemency because he's an orphan.'
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