ONE of the things that struck me most while covering the Philippine Blog Awards Saturday night was the invocation of Fr. Stephen Cuyos, who is himself a blogger and podcast host.
At times as humorous as it was heartfelt, the good priest’s prayer was a timely reminder of our need to be responsible bloggers. Sure, we blog for different reasons, and as I’ve said many times, including in this blog post for CNET Asia, bloggers are not journalists, and journalists, even though we may blog, are journalists first, with different standards, different values, than bloggers.
This does not mean, however, that we cannot celebrate our differences, and learn from each other. Frankly, the danger I see now in everyone’s mad rush to become bloggers, and of companies, politicians and other groups to court the favor of bloggers, is that people may no longer see the need for objectivity, or learn to distinguish press releases from real stories.
In our desire to personalize all content, will we only hear the truth we want to hear? Will we filter information that doesn’t conform to our preconceived notions of the truth, and end up only reinforcing our own prejudices?
In the thrill of finally getting recognition as bloggers, will bloggers end up wittingly or unwittingly pimping the products and services of the companies that seek to generate publicity through the blogosphere? Will they continue blogging out of passion, or be more concerned with generating revenue, increasing traffic and acting as the PR of different companies?
Make no mistake about it: these are also temptations that journalists face, these are also tests that some among our ranks might fail. The difference is that as journalists we believe in a code of ethics that we must live up to, and we strive to meet the standards of our profession.
As blogging becomes more mainstream, however, what happens when blogging allows individuals to exercise power without responsibility? What happens when our loyalty to our friends is stronger than our responsibility to our readers? What happens when we forget the need to find the truth, no matter who might get hurt along the way?
Here’s an excerpt from Father Cuyos’ invocation reprinted in the Infotech article written by INQUIRER.net reporter Erwin Oliva, who also covered the Philippine Blog Awards and was one of the finalists in the News and Media category for his blog Cyberbaguioboy:
In a blogger’s prayer, Fr. Stephen Cuyos who blogs about Linux and his love for open source, called on bloggers to use this Internet innovation for God’s work and to be “bloggers for truth.”
“Help us to be steadfast in our Christian commitment that visitors may find in our blogs a source of encouragement and inspiration. Give us strength to proclaim your word, that we may play our part in breaking down the walls of hostility in the world and use our blogs to strengthen the bonds of friendship, solidarity and love,” he prayed.
Visit Father Cuyos’ blog for a copy of the full prayer.
December 15th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Just to remind everyone about being a blogger, where most of us, were choosen to be New York Times man of the year 2006. Blogging is just words that comes out of the persons blogger where he or she is not really sure about the facts in life, especially when it comes to politics in the philippines, where the sole force of philippine politics was Jueteng Power where a legally elected president Erap was booted out because of jueteng anak ng pating. The latest political power mover Gambling craze.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
while anybody can own a blog and exploit it, i guess not everybody can write. journalists can be bloggers. but for all bloggers to pass as journalists is another thing. in the end, it’s in the integrity of the writer and his, her work.
April 5th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
[...] Alarilla discussed this recently in Blog Addicts in a post titled, “Let’s be bloggers for truth.” At times as humorous as it was heartfelt, the good priest’s prayer was a timely reminder [...]
April 4th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
[...] is really not the first time that bloggers are now treated as journalists. But not many bloggers would want to be considered as [...]
April 4th, 2007 at 1:31 am
Thumbs up for the idea on creating a blogger’s code of ethics!
Thumbs down for journalists who don’t even know their code of ethics.