By Steve Johnson
Metromix.com (
Chicago Tribune)
Published: 11/19/2006
Excerpt:
We have learned in the past several weeks that Neil Patrick Harris
("Doogie Howser, M.D.") and T.R. Knight ("Grey's Anatomy") are gay,
facts they announced after goading from celebrity bloggers, the men and
women who have made it their sacred duty to peer into the bedrooms,
closets and even grocery carts of the famous.
We have also
learned -- thanks to a photographer with a keen eye for ordinary
behavior -- that first daughter Barbara Bush had two plastic cups, one in
the hand, one in a back pocket, at the recent Yale-Princeton football
game and that such cups, in the opinion of the blogger who posted the
photos, are commonly used by college students at football games for
drinking alcoholic beverages. ...
... The blog world and its march against privacy "is putting pressure on
journalists to be faster and to sidestep the process of verification"
in an attempt to keep up with perceived "buzz," said
Kelly McBride,
ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute for Journalism in St.
Petersburg, Fla. "The problem with that, as journalists, is it forces
us to skip the step where we ask ourselves what our purpose is in
covering the story."
She's suggesting a standard for journalists -- verify and don't let
"buzz" replace "newsworthiness" -- but it applies just as well to
bloggers and to people who read blogs, too. Privacy is eroded, of
course, not just by people who publish information that ought to be
personal, but also by those who fall into the trap of consuming it.
More of this article...Search Google News for more quotes by Kelly McBride...
