Comments on: Would You Risk Your Life With a Blog Post?

By: Lorelle VanFossen

Lorelle VanFossen — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:30:22 +0000

That Publish button carries with it a tremendous weight, doesn’t it. Good for you for thinking of others over yourself when it came time to publish something that might put others at risk.

We can rationalize this in many ways, but journalists deal with this issue every day. Should we be any different.

I really loved the movie, V for Vendetta, the moral of which was that it takes one person to change a culture and a government. There are some causes worth risking lives and dying for. When it comes to tackling those subjects on your blog, you have to consider if it is really worth dying for. If it is, blog it. If it isn’t, then…well, we know that story.

Sometimes, real courage is doing nothing with intent so we can blog another day and change the world in small and less public ways.

By: Big Fella

Big Fella — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:39:53 +0000

You are correct, Angelo, a smart blogger is one who does understand the need to “self-edit”. Mainstream journalists, and media publishers, if they are rational and have integrity, also do not publish everything they hear, no matter first amendment rights and no matter potential newsstand sales.

There are just some things a journalist or blogger should not publish, whether it may jeopardize the publisher or a third party. At minimum it could lead to unnecessary, unearned embarrasment, and at its worst, injury whether in the legal sense or the physical sense. We don’t have the right to play it fast and loose.

By: tallglassofmilk

tallglassofmilk — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:01:13 +0000

I find it amusing that a blogger would say they’d try not to offend anyone with their writing. In my experience there is something to offend everyone and even the most benign posts can set off someone of a different mindset. To not offend is an impossibility.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:44:01 +0000

Your suggestion that we need to do our homework in researching is a good one. Last month I posted something that I’d received from what I thought was an impeccable source and that sounded totally plausible. Within minutes one of my readers wrote to let me know that snopes.com said the information was not quite accurate. I could/should have done that simple check myself! I was able to tweak the blog post to make the facts right, but unfortunately the post had gone to hundreds of people by e-mail, which could not be retracted. In the next post, I had to set the record straight, but that does not help all those who received a forward of the previous blog post.

Though I’m usually careful about what I post, I lapsed on that one. I’m now much more vigilant about checking and cross-checking.

Thanks for the reminder, especially on April Fools’ Day!

By: PocketCultures

PocketCultures — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:42:08 +0000

It’s an interesting point. We feature blogs and other content from all over the world, sometimes from people living within oppressive regimes. For precisely this reason we decided not to include political topics, to avoid getting either ourselves or anyone associated with the blog into trouble.

I guess some potential readers will think this a negative, especially because so much blogging discussion is political, but we would rather keep it like this than risk putting anyone in danger.

I’d be really interested to read other views on this…