Medienspiegel.ch

Erst vor wenigen Tagen ist an dieser Stelle aus einem Referat von BBC-Newsroom-Chef Peter Horrocks zitiert worden:

«The likelihood that increasingly well-organised digital lobby groups will pervert and exploit the interactive mechanisms that news organisations have established is a strong reason for the BBC to have a high level of caution in this area.»

Nun doppelt Adam Weinstein in der aktuellen Ausgabe des linken Magazins «Mother Jones» nach und zitiert zu diesem Zweck Chris Suellentrop, der vor ziemlich genau drei Jahren im Online-Magazin «Slate» schrieb:

«Got a story you can't convince a mainstream reporter to run? Leak it anonymously to a blog on your payroll. Then get a local reporter to write a story on the controversial, gossipy, local political blog. Soon everyone in town will be talking about the story you leaked to the blog. Voila! Eventually a mainstream news organization will run a story on the rumor that "everyone is talking about." Or they'll do a "what people are buzzing about on the Internet" piece. And no one will know that the blog post was a paid placement until after the election.»

Ein schlechtes Argument gegen «networked journalism», meint Scott Carp von «Publishing 2.0», denn dieser Art von Missbrauch könne begegnet werden:

«Journalists have always had the responsibility of vetting the sources for their stories - so now they will have to take on the responsibility of vetting “sources” who are actually writing some of the content. [...] news organizations can be transparent. Want to publish content from bloggers who donate to political campaigns? Disclose to readers that you’re doing it, ask the bloggers to disclose the contributions, and leave the rest to readers — they are pretty smart. Given all the right information, they can figure it out for themselves.»