Brody's Scribbles... Right Wing Blogger Loses Credibility; Who Is At Fault?

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) July 22 | Not often enough are bloggers held accountable either by their readers or in fact themselves when mistakes are made and mis/disinformation is spread that has harmful effects on others.

In the mainstream press/media where I work, there is a fairly basic sense of journalistic ethos that need to be adhered to and let's face it, not always are those standards applied when they ought to be. Of course, in fairness, the liberal slant or bias in the press does exist just as much as the conservative bent or right wing attitudes does.

What is important to note though is that there must be some form of credible accountability when mistakes are made and then there must be apologies, corrections if necessary, and steps to ensure that such mistakes are not repeated and in the more egregious cases, the journalist or editors involved summarily dismissed.

One of the largest faults built into the blogosphere by its very nature is that there is not a true system of checks and balance to verify facts, give credence to sources, basic accountability, and veracity of the stories once posted.  Then there is the journalistic standards and ethics which in and of itself is a slippery slope. The most recent case that best illustrates this is the flap that has ensued over "reporting" by prominent conservative blogger Andrew Brietbart regarding accusations of racism directed against a former U. S. Department of Agriculture official who was fired at the direction of the White House for these perceived and alleged comments.

Media Matters summarised the story thusly:

"Andrew Breitbart smeared former USDA official Shirley Sherrod as a "racist," using as "proof" a heavily edited video of comments she made during a March NAACP event that he posted on his site BigGovernment.com. In fact, the full video of Sherrod's statements vindicated Sherrod, showing that she was telling a story about getting beyond race, and media figures and outlets from across the board have rejected Breitbart's false claims against her."

What has happened has produced a media firestorm. There also looms the bigger question, what standards and ethics need to be applied to the blogosphere? Who holds the blogger's feet to the fire sorta speak in terms of accuracy, fairness, and truthfulness?  This especially applies across the board especially when the LGBT community and the Christian activist community square off. 

I also am concerned when the media and my fellow journalists abrogate their, [our collective] responsibilities to do some basic fact checking. The need to ask the question; "Can this be independently verified?" should be automatic. Never should a story be run without its veracity ensured.

In the current extremely polarised American political atmosphere, journalists & bloggers both need to be careful before charging headlong into stories. There is the grave danger as exemplified by this mess that a lesser good is the end result. I do not apologise for Breitbart's actions nor his apparent lack of journalistic integrity, but this is a subject that sorely merits further discussion.