Blogomist vs. Citizen Journalist

To get ready for last weekend's Blogher conference I had some new business cards printed up. Blogher wasn't the only reason( the url and email were incorrect and there is just so many times you can scratch out an email address and write in a correct one),but as I was updating the card, I hesitated on what I should call myself. Am I a journalist? a columnist? a citizen journalist? Or, a Blogomist?

I chose blogomist. Not just because,as my friend John thought, I was playing off of the word bigamist --I reminded him that I chose blogomist much as a biology professional would call themselves a biologist.

Blogomist is an intentional choice.While in my heart of hearts I think of myself as a journalist,I know in this blog I do not always adhere to the code of ethics a newspaper requires.

That's not to say that I fabricate stories or sources, I don't . But, I definitely do not follow some of the fundamental rules that a newspaper editor would demand.  In particular:no anonymous quotes.

I"m all about anonymous quotes and often I rely on one person's experience to tell a story because it is their story, their perspective.

My friend John was partially right about why I chose blogomist. I think it sounds funny and it fits in  with the tone of this blog which is to share serious topics in a lighthearted format. So blogomist I am, at least for the time being.

Blogher was exhilarating. I'm still in process mode. It usually takes a couple of days for the real significance of a conference to settle in. However, there was one very profound moment for me. It was during a breakout session on Citizen Journalists.

To read more about that conversation and Blogher in general, check out Jay Rosen's PressThink. I'm recommending you read Jay because it was something he said during a breakout session that was my biggest AH-HA moment of the conference.

The conversation centered on citizen journalists and the pros and cons of that title. After about 30 minutes Jay suggested that it didn't matter what you called yourself as long as your readers understand what they've signed up for when they come to your blog. In other words, we should share our own code of ethics.

In other words, be transparent. I am committed to that and always include a note at the end of a post to alert viewers when I have changed names to protect people's jobs.

I'm going to be creating my own code of blogging over the next couple of days. In the meantime, A comment by Amy Gahran at Contentious led me to Rebecca Blood's Weblog Ethics which I basically follow.

More to come. I have to get to work now. See ya