A healthy discussion on Scoble’s blog is following the Niall Kennedy / hotlinking on company responsibility for employee actions and mistakes as well as the more cliched bloggers are journalists meme.

On the latter part, will people please stop trying to compare blogs/bloggers as a whole to journalists and reporters? Not all of us are trying to be journalists writing in the blog format. At times a blogger might take on the persona of a reporter like in live blogging or when getting more details on a story, but I am certain if I ping all of my friends who have blogs and ask them if they are trying to be journalists most, if not all, will respond with a resounding “no!”

I’ve written before several times that I don’t go out of my way to research every side of every story covered here at Hmm. Let’s be realistic, this blog isn’t my job nor do I think it’s my job in the blog format to spend hours trying to get a story posted on a blog 100% right the first time out. My opinions and point of view are based on the information before me at the time I’m writing them. Readers who don’t understand this initially, will pick up on this over time.

The part that originally and continues to attract me to the blog format is the rough draft published nature which allows me to develop a story over a period of time out in the open publically. This means I fully reserve the right to strike original text I’ve written (not delete once published), change parts or even alter my opinion entirely on something I’ve writtten previously. I reserve that right to change my mind as more facts emerge.

Haven’t you ever heard a story from one or more sources and formed an immediate reaction? And then later when you learned more facts about the situation your opinion changed? That’s happened to me from time to time in life and through the blog format I’m excited that I’m able to capture that progression of time and circumstance. It’s the rough draft which sometimes very quickly becomes a more final draft and readers can experience that along with me.

I like that about blogs. It’s the primary reason I’m excited about this style format.

The fiction idea that’s been done before
It’s relatively unique to any other type of writing. With the fiction novels I’ve written, readers haven’t seen the numerous drafts that went through to the final draft.

I might experiment someday with writing a novel in public in blog format. I know that’s not an original concept, but something that has definitely been a recurring thought and minor fascination. Perhaps most readers wouldn’t be interested in a project like this, but I bet some might. Would you be interested in seeing a novel evolve in the blog format? Would you read along?

Rumors should be denoted as rumors
If something being written about is a rumor and I know it’s a rumor that is always disclosed in the post. I’m not trying to mimick a gossip rag here, but some rumours and gossip make me go hmm. If I doubt the accuracy of the source I’m quoting on something, I’ll say it. If I receive first party clarification and change of anything written about here I’ll update the post. Always. My Skype name and contact email are clearly on the home page of this site and have been for years. I’m easy to contact and leave messages.

Now let’s get back to stuff like what happened with Niall Kennedy. Should I run down Niall to get his side of the story before writing anything on the blog about that? Niall made the comment on Scoble’s blog that Robert should have done so. This got me thinking if I should have too and the answer I came up with is in most cases: no.

If I start doing that I’ll spend more time gathering facts to write about instead of writing and reacting. This blog lives and breathes in a format that encourages reaction. It’s not called Things That I Research In Depth That … Make You Go Hmm. If I have or know somebody I’m writing about on my Skype or in my email list is it absolutely necessary for me to contact them first to get their side? I don’t think so. Why not? Because they can respond here out in public for all to see or choose to respond privately. I’ve had this happen many times from people I know and don’t know. CEOs, authors, bloggers, software developers, etc. In some cases I’m absolutely, positively convinced if I had not written anything here I wouldn’t have gotten any response.

There are many times the blog format can be utilyzed as a better communication tool than email. I’ve lamented the fact before that email is dying. It’s not dead, but it is four of six feed down and starting to rot.

If I have something private to say I’m never going to do it here on the blog, I’m going to contact the person privately. If I have no way to contact that person privately and it’s important I might utilyze the blog format to ask others for help in reaching someone that I need to speak to privately (but not disclose the private information).

Notes while trying to reach contact with Niall
Now that you understand why it’s after the fact, let me give you some facts on how last night’s blog entry came to be and what I’ve done to try and get Niall Kennedy’s side of the story. I saw Todd Bishop’s blog entry and didn’t see the image on the Microsoft RSS blog that Niall had changed. I wrote that in the first paragraph of my post that I hadn’t seen the image. Among the things in this story I would like to have seen is the image to assess if it truly was pornographic or not. After writing and publishing the post I’m reading mixed opinions if it was truly pornographic and instead might have just been a picture of some guy’s ass. That in and of itself is not pornographic. Context needed.

I was also curious if this was only Microsoft that Niall responded to this way. This morning Randy Morin reminded me of another incident involving Niall Kennedy with an insightful comment on Scoble’s blog:

I’m pretty certain such publicity compounded with previous instances [sifry.com/alerts/archives/000297.html] suggest a recurring behavior that other employers and partners are likely going to avoid.

I didn’t remember the Nazi helmet image conflict until Randy brought it up but this guy is starting to develop a bizarre history with using controversial images at the wrong place and time, isn’t he? Read what Niall had to say about that situation on his blog and then compare to this one:

I have since realized the imagery was in bad taste, especially to the organizations involved. I used the logos of other corporations I felt represented the printing press at the fingertips of the masses and associated those companies with an image of a dying American soldier, a rifle butt, and barbed wire. It is not the type of image I would want associated with my business. I apologize to the companies and open source projects pictured.

Last night I attempted to get a direct response from Niall by using his contact form as he wondered why Robert wasn’t doing at the top of this comment thread.

I sent Niall two comments, one by email and one with a Skype text comment. He did reply via email briefly saying he could talk to me on Skype — and ignored answering the questions I asked in the email — but I had already left the office last night and was unable to catch up with him then.

As another non-journalist like Scoble, I’m not going to spend a lot of time trying to get to extract Niall’s side of the story, but I have tried to do so where one of the individuals directly involved complained that people weren’t getting his side of the story.

This morning, I sent Niall another message (7:57am PST) on Skype: “Missed you last night, Niall. You there now? Just a couple quick questions so I can get your side of the story down.”

Within 10 minutes he responded and we chatted briefly.

My Skype conversation with Niall
While I didn’t ask for or receive permission to quote the exact text of our Skype conversation I’m going to only relate primarily the pertinent details with the exception of the screenshot shown at the top of this post. That is there simply to prove that indeed I did successfully have a conversation with Niall and isn’t meant or intended to break any confidences.

After the conversation, I told Niall I was going to amend my post last night which I’ve already done to some degree and may make further amendments later once he’s made his blog post.

The biggest point of contention is that Niall insists that the image he used was in fact not pornographic. He pointed me to the official story that Seattle PI ran in their business section which said nothing about it being a “partially censored image of a naked person.”

I indicated I would change my original title to reflect this information (I struck the word “porn” and added “controversial” because that’s certainly the case).

Unfortunately, Niall refused to provide me with the original and swapped image so I could examine them and judge for myself (anybody have a cache of the image to share?). However he said he will republish both images on his blog along with his own explanation, perhaps as soon as later today.

At first Niall somewhat evaded my question about his current relationship with Microsoft, but when pressed further he responded by saying that he felt he had a “pretty good relationship with many people at Microsoft.”

I remain confused if this was the case why he didn’t just contact them directly before swapping out the image? He confirmed to me that he contacted them after the image was swapped out. I think that timing was still wrong regardless if the image was more tame. He should have made an attempt to contact them before swapping that image with something controversial. If it wasn’t pornographic, I’m more in favor of him swapping the image, but since I haven’t seen it, I’m taking him at his word that it wasn’t that bad.

Keep in mind this is the same guy who thought the Nazi helmet image wasn’t that bad when he originally posted it and upon further reflection admitted it was in “poor taste.”

Our conversation was cordial and professional and he thanked me for the research.

Enough playing the journalist card with (most) blogs
I’m growing weary of people playing the journalist card with blogs. Most of us who write using the blog format aren’t professional journalists and are not trying to be. We’re seeing and commenting on a story which in some or many cases might be factually inaccurate. In the case of Mr. Kennedy, this is a great example. I realize when I read most blogs that the information/commentary they are providing might be based on misinformation or facts that aren’t completely accurate or developed as what appears to be the case here with Mr. Kennedy.

Good intentioned, reputable people will update and revisit their posts based on new information/facts that arise as both Robert Scoble and myself have done time and time again. Conversely, those who only want to report one side of the story won’t update or allow comments for others to offer information that could/would change the writer’s perspective and opinion on the story.

If I was writing a story for the New York Times or researching something for a non-fiction book, newspaper or article, the bar of fact checking and journalistic responsibility I’d employ prior to publish would be higher and more strictly enforced. If you doubt this then seek out any of my published works and compare to the format used here at Hmm.

This isn’t to say I’ll never do research or fact checking with things posted to Hmm. Sometimes I’ll do everything the same way I’d do it for a published piece. The beauty is readers here get to see beauty and the beast. The beast is the rough draft and it can take time to tame the beast into beauty.

Don’t most readers of blogs understand this? Am I wrong? Right? What do you think?

Did this post make you go hmm?

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