Impact Blogger: Corrections: Make Them Fast; Make Them Visible

Monday, July 7, 2008

Corrections: Make Them Fast; Make Them Visible

Nobody's perfect. But making excuses for a mistake is unforgivable.

Mistakes are inevitable. When you make a mistake, correct it fast and put the correction in a visible place. Don't hide it like newspapers do, in tiny type next to the girdle ads.

I made at least one mistake here: Major General Buckman, Urban Legend
And corrected it on the original and here: More on Major General Buckman

Now I have some more digging to do.

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WHY IMPACT BLOGGER?

Too many political bloggers imitate the broken paradigms of the politicians: they abandon any pretense of accuracy, toss their manners under the bus, shove civility off as cliff and plunge into the usual, boring orgy of "gotcha!." Instead of trying to solve problems or persuade people with facts and logic, they convince themselves that scoring points is beneficial.

Well it's not. It's destructive, divisive and insanely irrational. They preach to the converted, chum the partisan waters with rotten flesh and enagge in the selfsame behavior that whips a lunch mob to action. Not a noble act calculated to resolve differences and advance the commonweal.

Most of these people -- even the young ones -- are stuck in the Sixties where, "If you're not with us, you're against us" was the confrontational, divisive philosophy. Smears, bias, distortions and the prejudice behind them poison any reasonable person's attempt to make an intelligent decision.

In short, the political process stinks. That stench drives people from the polls.

I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to most of these people. Schools do not teach the art of debate and persuasive speech. Emulating most politicians is intellecutally toxic. The media -- print, broadcast and online -- churn out a stead stream of incomplete, out-of-context, distorted (and therefore unethical) stories. Some -- like Keith Olbermann and Ann Coulter -- are calculatedly biased. Many more unbalanced stories are unconscious, created by reporters who are cluelessly unaware of their own personal biases and the ethical imperative to honestly work to eliminate those shortcomings

In short, there is no good example to imitate. And fairness, accuracy, context and the reliance on fact do not come naturally. They must be learned.

That can change, one blogger at a time. Bloggers who opt for results, not rants, can make a difference. Sure, it means giving up the cheap shot, the low-blow, the sucker punch, but the satisfaction of doing the right thing is it's own reward.

It's harder to do the right thing. It requires brains, dedication, thoughtfulness and more research. But that is the only way to get results. The sloppy, careless, polemical rant can be done with a hamster's brainpower. It just adds to the toxic sludge and becomes, as Shakespeare might put it, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." You can poison or you can heal. The choice is yours.

Leading bloggers and others to a more civil, far more results-oriented practice is what Impact Blogger is all about.

Impact Blogger

Monday, July 7, 2008

Corrections: Make Them Fast; Make Them Visible

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