Josh Wolf, the Blogger Code of Ethics and the Title of Journalist

by vergenewmedia on April 12, 2007

I’m a bit suspect of all the latest kerfuffle over a “Blogger Code of Ethics”.  In it, Tim O’Reilly and many other well-intentioned folk are trying to codify behavior on the internet.  It all seems a little too group-think for my tastes, and while I’m sure there are noble and useful ideas contained within such a code, I’ve yet to warm up to the idea. My mother and father instilled a fine code of ethics in me and I’m sure a tech savvy guy like me is well capable of applying them to my online presence.

Before we move forward… THIS BLOG IS NOT JOURNALISM. This blog and this blogger hope to create opportunities for discussion. Nuff said.

Some of the discussion spilled over into the Yahoo video bloggers group, where newly freed video blogger/activist/journalist?, (you decide in comments) Josh Wolf was riffing about the merits of the bloggers code.

joshwolf.jpg

I had been paying some attention to Josh’s situation, because it overlaps many of the different worlds I operate in.  One conversation about Josh that caught my attention was an interview by former NBC colleague Kevin Sites.  Kevin interviews Josh in a “In the Hot Zone” article entitled: “Journalist or Activist?” It’s an interesting read and I’d encourage you to listen to the audio of the interview becaus it gives added context.   I don’t care if Josh is or ever has been an anarchist and I don’t apply that as metric of his journalistic street creds.  What jumped off the screen at me was this exchange between Wolf and Sites. 

hotzone.gif

Kevin Sites: If there had been a situation where you saw a protestor beating up a police officer, or you saw them committing arson, would you have shot that?

Josh Wolf: I wasn’t there to shoot that.

Kevin Sites: No, but would you have shot that?

Josh Wolf: That’s a question I would have made in that moment…

Kevin Sites: Well, that’s what I want to ask you. If I asked you to take sides, if I asked you to take a side of journalism or activism, you know, which side are you taking here? Because you’re asking for the protection of journalism yet you’re also seeking to be an activist.

The words “I wasn’t there to shoot that.” had me gob smacked. So I encountered Josh talking about the bloggers code in the Yahoo video bloggers group, and challenged him on these conflicting points of view. Here are EXCERPTS from that discussion group that Wolf agreed to let me use in this post.

Long:

Josh if you’re a journalist you’re there to tell the
entire story the best you can.”I wasn’t there to shoot
that???” There have been plenty of my assignments
that have evolved into something that I wasn’t there
to shoot. Part of being a journalist is shedding
pre-conceived notions as best you can. If that means
shooting things that rock your world-view, than so be
it.

I was in Quebec City. I was in Genoa, Italy. I saw
that kid lying dead in the street, killed by Italian
paramilitary. I also saw the kid next to me pull a
Molotov cocktail out of his jacket and hurl it at
Italian police. In Quebec City, masked figures were
hurling rotary saw blade down on police from rooftops.
I’ve been gassed by police there and in my hometown
of Washington, DC. Maybe it’s because both the police
and the protesters have disdain for media, but I shot
everthing I felt was relevant.

Josh Wolf is clearly an honorable, brave young man, as
brave as any journalist, but I don’t believe he
deserves shield law protection simply because: “I
wasn’t there to shoot that.”

Wolf:

Jim, Taken out of context, the words, “I wasn’t there to shoot that.”
sound far different than the reality meant by the statement. When I
state, “I wasn’t there,” I don’t mean that wasn’t my mission or chosen
task, but that I literally wasn’t there to shoot it. Would a different
journalist have stopped filming the one cop who was choking the Gabe
Meyers and investigated what was happening with the other? Probably.
Should I have, maybe, but the fact of the matter was that I didn’t know
what was going on and felt that what I was filming was newsworthy and
there was no reason to walk away and turn off the camera.

So after some private email exchanges Josh Wolf agreed to answer some questions on the topic via email.

Long:

In light of your calls for a “bloggers code of ethics” Do you believe that people who identify themselves as journalists should adhere to a set of principles/ethics, such as the SPJ’s?

If yes/no explain your position.

I’m going to tee up a PURELY HYPOTHETICAL question here: let’s say that you’re at a protest and you’re not shooting something at that moment, and protesters engage in any type of unlawful acitivity, and that the shooting of such acitvity would NOT endanger you. Would you shoot it, or, more importantly, would you intentionally decide NOT to shoot the activity

I’m really focused on that one remark in your interview with Sites (as you may have gathered) I don’t care where you are politically. You’ve stated your position on THAT interview. I’ve tried to re-phrase the question so we both know the context.

Wolf:

I believe that people who do and do not identify as journalists already
adhere to their own principles and ethics. I think that codifying these
principles and making it accessible to visitors would possibly
strengthen the trust visitors put in their favorite sites

I would and have shot unlawful activity; all the unlawful activity (both
by protesters and police) I witnessed on July 8th was captured on my
video as best as I was humanly able, and all of the material captured
was put on the published video. I have never intentionally decided not
to shoot any activities due to the subjects involvement in unethical or
illegal activity. I can not fathom a situation where I would not shoot
such material, but I am hesitant to speak in absolutes about what I
would never do.

Wolf’s answers satisfied my concern about the “I wasn’t there to shoot that.” comment. There are for more criteria to consider when defining oneself as a journalist especially if you take on the role of acitvist/advocate. Josh Wolf was “embedded” with the protesters. Embedded journalism brings its own set of problems, I believe. While it is courageous to stand by your beliefs, it takes far more strength and courage to tell the truth when it flys in the face of what you believe.

Clearly this post only begins to scratch the surface of these discussions. You know what the comments are for!! Please use them. Visit Josh on his blog and pose more questions to him.

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  • I see both sides of this issue, though I'm not sure it's an issue so much as it is a case of semantics. In the final analysis, none of us knows what he or she will do in a given moment, much less under pretense of absolutes, so questions about what someone might or might not do serve only to create a theoretical platform for debate.

    This is why it's so damn hard to elect presidents.

    Personally, I think I'd rather see more activism, but I'd like to see it characterized as such. I find it impossible to believe in the "objective" point of view, because every word is written and every camera is pointed by someone with an opinion, no matter how neutral he or she may attempt to be. At least activism can admit it's taking sides.
  • I've been surprised at how many folks have reacted strongly to the stuff O'Reilly has proposed, because online communities have _always_ had rules as long as there have been online communities. That's how FAQs got their start in the 1980s - people writing up frequently asked questions about the purpose of a USENET group or listserv, so they could know what the community norms were. I wrote my first FAQ in 1994 for a discussion group I still host today, and I'm convinced the group still exists because we had that document as a form of constitution, so participants could know what types of behavior were acceptable and which ones weren't. As long as it's developed by consensus by the community, or by the blogger who is allowing comments on his/her blog, than I don't see why that is such a big deal. Sure, there are free-fire zones on the Net, but that doesn't mean that discussion rules are new phenomenon by any stretch of the imagination.
  • Justin, of course pure objecitvity is impossible. Beyond that let's go ahead and semantically seperate "news cameraman" from "journalist" A news cameraman answers yes to "would you shoot that?"

    I like your point on transparency and think it's vitally important.
  • Andy,

    I think anyone who looks at the first graph of my post will conlude that I haven't reacted strongly to to the notion of a bloggers code. I'm simply not sure. Perhaps it's adolescent non-conformity. Considering this blog is less than a month old, maybe that's to be expected. Besides, I'm running out of room in my sidebars for badges. :-)

    Seriously, there is merit in the idea, I'm simply not sure (see first graph of post) if I'm ready to be attached to something like that. That's ok right?
  • I think that O'Reilly ran into trouble with his proposal for several reasons.

    1) Lot's of people have preexisting beefs with him for a myriad of reasons
    2) The badge he proposed (a sheriff's badge) rubbed some people the wrong way---seemed very heavy handed.
    3)People didn't see his proposal as discussion guidelines for his particular blog, they saw it as an attempt to regulate speech across the blogosphere.
  • Some of our best journalists have been 'activists'. HL Mencken was certainly an activist, and I like his definition of the task of a journalist - to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. A good journalist will always be making someone (hopefully those in power) uncomfortable. David Halberstam made the Johnson Administration very uncomfortable when he was reporting from Saigon, so much so that Johnson asked Punch Sulzberger to withdraw Halberstam from the post. Halberstam's year long rotation was actually coming to an end anyway, so Sulzberger extended him for another year. In this country, unlike many others, we don't license journalists. That is what a free press is all about. Anyone may call themselves journalists - you may not think they are a journalist, which is fine. That's what free speech is all about. It, fortunately, does not need anyone's approval. The day it does, it is no longer free.
  • Michael,

    Kevin Sites continues in that tradition.

    I'll say it again: It takes far more strength and courage to tell the truth when it flys in the face of what you believe.

    Oh, and make sure you stop by and say hi to Tim Russert out at NAB. ;-)
  • For those that view in terms of politics, the social aspects of Web 2.0 and continued widespread adoption of the net is a new opportunity for politics. They'll work selflessly for the good of the weak and maligned. Trial balloons for codes of governance will seek consensus. On the other hand, it'll be more difficult to form pressure groups since the interactions on the web are mainly individual and tend to be based on intellect. The question will be how much of their own freedom people will be willing to give up to make the internet safe for others.
  • Jim
    I have to take issue with you. This blog (yours) is very much journalism and that is a good thing. It goes back to the strongest roots of journalism, and of authorship (Something that has been largely lost in our corporate television universe). Somewhere along the line we picked up the curious idea that 'journalism' was all about... oatmeal. Banal, edgeless, lacking in opinion. The perfect definition of insipid. Journalism rather has its roots in people railing with a very strong opinion and point of view. The whole idea of a free press is to allow all to express all sides - not one corporate voice to express 'all sides'. Ya just can't do that with any conviction - you end up sounding like Hillary Clinton or John McCain.
  • Michael,

    I'll just say you're generous in your a assessement of this little blog and the blogger, and I'll forego taking the bait on the comparison to any Presidential candidates. ;-)
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