Ethical standards is funny in relation to newspaper journalism. I don't know many newspapers in the UK that have much in the way of real ethics, certainly not much in the way of morals.
Sure, they have some house standards, and they are self-regulating in cases of extreme breach. But mostly it's just muckraking, partisan politics and sensationalism in the name of trying to stay afloat and not lose advertisers. Look through your newspapers today and tell me that they're being transparent about their advertising. A journalist in this group told me only last month about how his editor killed a story he was writing about a huge corporate crime solely because the criminals were big advertisers. I think maybe the US has a stronger myth of the noble journalist and truth seeking press. However true that is, I don't know - certainly I don't see much in the way of truth seeking editors and proprietors. So I don't see why people writing or publishing online have to be regulated at all, beyond existing laws. There will always be conmen and suckers, politicians and voters, papers and readers. Regulations like this don't change any of that, they're just something for politicians and civil servants to do. And how will this be enforced - whose permits would be monitored and taken away, and how? Surely it's a joke - but a lucrative joke, if your Permit To Speak costs you money to buy. And, in the end, Permits to Speak will be abused by people who don't agree with what you say. On 6-Oct-09, at 4:48 PM, Tom Gosse wrote: > On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Adrian Miles <[email protected] > >wrote: > > > > > > > I don't think bloggers, on the one hand, can > > call for the same rights and privileges as the press, but then not > > want to actually be held to reasonable ethical standards. > > > > Well said! > > -- > Tom Gosse (Irish Hermit) > [email protected] > www.irishhermit.com > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
