Media Emerging

This is the part where I argue against Lisa… (it’ll all make more sense if you read Lisa Hoffmann’s post about the battle between transparency and responsibility).

Lisa is right about our tendency as a species to withhold information from others. Where that instinct comes from is beyond me, but it’s kind of irrelevant. The fact is, we do it. And I’ll also agree that it is often (though not always) destructive.

But I disagree on many points of what follows those opening paragraphs.

First, I’m not sure bloggers are looking out for us. If politicians, corporate executives, husband and wives  lie or withhold information, why should I trust a blogger to have any more integrity? Aren’t bloggers, despite all our lemming-like recitations of “Transparency! Authenticity!,” just as human as politicians, executives and spouses? Aren’t we bloggers just as susceptible to the same fears, anxieties, territorialism, greed, selfishness and other motivators?

I, too, *know* Jeremiah Owyang. Although, I’ve never met him, never spoken with him, never broken bread with him. In fact, all I really *know* of Jeremiah is that he blogs on topics that interest me, that his point-of-view often is the same as mine, and that when we do disagree, I believe with some certainty that we’ll conduct ourselves with decorum.

But trust him to look out for my best interests? No. Why should I?

And to compare Jeremiah’s unsubstantiated musings (which, I concede, are founded in fact) to Jon Stewart’s interview with Jim Cramer is a stretch (as an aside, isn’t it a shame that we have to count on Jon Stewart to do what “real” journalists are supposed to do?). Jon Stewart cited facts. He used no anonymous sources. He asked questions. He let Cramer (sometimes) rebut.

Jeremiah, on the other hand, issued a call to action before he had full information.

The “I tried to call them but they didn’t get back to me” approach is, at best, incomplete journalism. What do we know about how hard Owyang tried to get Forrester’s perspective? He reached out to them on Twitter. Good. He scheduled a briefing. Good. But he didn’t let Mzinga tell their story before he began Tweeting. Why? Why not wait until the briefing? What are the compelling reasons for raising red flags immediately? Are there compelling reasons not to wait until you’ve gathered all the facts? What good or harm comes from reporting before the Forrester briefing? What good or harm comes from waiting?

I’m not suggesting that delay/withhold is always the best course of action. The reporting of Woodward & Bernstein on the Watergate scandal, for example, was vital to the health of democracy. The story that brought down Nixon wasn’t a single, all-at-once article, though. The story unfolded day-by-day on the pages of the Washington Post. Had they waited until they had “all” of the facts, the story may never have been told. There are times when withholding information is bad.

But…

There are times when withholding information is good. What if instead of hearing rumors about Mzinga’s financial troubles, Owyang had heard rumors of U.S. soldiers performing a military exercise near Baghdad. Should he report the information? Should he “let adults make their own decisions based on the facts”? If some of the adults turned out to be terrorists who then ambushed the soldiers, would we still be grateful that he didn’t withhold the information?

In matters of life-and-death, we’re willing to waive off transparency and full-reporting. But what about less extreme cases? If Owyang had been proved wrong, would you be as supportive of his early reporting? What if had been only partially right? And if he were proved wrong and issued a retraction, would it matter? Would enough people notice the retraction? Would the damage already have been done? What if his information had been mostly accurate — not entirely — and had led to further troubles at Mzinga and more job losses? Would we still embrace his heroic willingness to not withhold information?

The Owyang/Mzinga story is not relevant as an isolated case, but as a symbolic case. Jeremiah is an analyst, paid by Forrester, and as such is not bound to the same ethical code. But should he be? Should we ALL be? Bloggers (and Twitterers) now perform many of the same acts (gathering and disseminating information) that journalists perform. And yet most of us have had NO formal training as journalists. We aren’t educated on topics like objectivity, fairness, journalistic ethics and accuracy. We understand these principles, but only in a casual sort of way.

When we blog or Tweet, our audience doesn’t always differentiate between Jeremiah Owyang and Tom Brokaw. To most readers, they (we) are just people from whom we heard the news. And if we’re not bound by the same standards as journalists (such that they exist), we risk doing a TREMENDOUS disservice to the public.

I don’t care that Owyang got it right this time. Good for him. He could have just as easily gotten it wrong. Or he could just have easily have written it because a Forrester client pressured him to. I doubt it, but I don’t know for sure. And until I do, I’m not going to assume that “bloggers are looking out for me.”

I’m using this rainy Saturday morning as an excuse to catch up on my Twitter follows. Ever find yourself wondering who you should follow? Here’s how I decide which of my followers I’ll follow back:

Interesting. Right off the bat, you’ve gotta be interesting. Do you Tweet about topics I get excited about? There’s gotta be something we have in common. You don’t have to overdo it, but if I don’t find anything interesting in your 20 most recent Tweets, I won’t dig any deeper.

Industry. Are you in my field? Can we learn from each other? Are you offering new ideas?

Follower Count. This one’s tricky because there’s no simple formula. A few thousand followers might indicate you’re bringing the juice. Or, you could just be well-known but over-rated. I’ll follow somebody with 30 followers and a quirky voice before I follow a 5,000-follower bore.

Chattiness. If you have 200 followers and 3,000 updates, you are your own biggest fan. I dig people who converse, but a high ratio of updates updates to followers tells me you’re talking just to hear your own voice.

Quietude. Conversely, if you rarely update, I probably won’t follow you. Why would I tune into a radio station that’s only on air one hour a week?

Replies. Are you a one-way Tweeter? With very rare exception, I only follow people who interact with their followers. This is a conversation, not a broadcast.

Self-Promotion. If your Tweets are predominantly about you or your product/service, forget it. Your product may be awesome. I don’t care. If that’s all you have to say, you’re boring and irritating.

ReTweetiness. Yeah, I made up that word. A Tweet stream peppered with occasional ReTweets shows me you like to share good content with your network. I dig that. It’s good news for me as a blogger (maybe you’ll RT this post), and its good for me as a follower (you’ll open my eyes to great posts).

Peer Recommendations. There are people who are just part of my inner circle. If one of these people recommends you, I’m 10x more likely to consider a follow. A recommendation from people like David Griner, Aaron Strout, Beth Harte, Lisa Hoffmann, David Mullen, Arik Hanson, and Danny Brown (among others) is the fastest way to get my attention.

These are just a few of my “Should I follow him/her back?” factors. There are others, but it’s raining, and I wanna go watch the rain. How do you decide who to follow?