At least suggests NY blogger (and professor) Jeff Jarvis in his "Buzz Machine" blog in an entry circulated today by one of our OWN bloggers, Bob Richter.
Perhaps I oversimply. Jarvis certainly does insist, though, that in all circumstances, linking back to the source material is key.
What's that mean?
It means whenever you draw any content from any blog or any news source (including wires), link back to where you found it and give clear credit.
The reasons he gives are, by and large, more economics-based than ethically grounded, but there's no reason the two can't go hand-in-hand. Well, maybe one or two ... sometimes ... but I digress.
In demonstrating the standard journalistic practice of the Associated Press' repackaging of unique stories and sending them out to everyone -- including Google, which recently signed a fairly problematic deal with AP to host their content directly instead of linking to source publications -- he makes a great point:
The AP picked up a unique story from the Nashua, NH, Telegraph and that’s what Google displayed — along with other AP clients’ versions — above the original story from the paper.
...
Note that the Nashua editor chuckles because Fark.com picked up the story and linked to the original — we pride ourselves in that in this world — and sent it good traffic. So Fark served journalism better than the wires and Google. That is telling. (emphasis added)
Don't know what Fark is? Go find out.
And realize they're doing a better job of supporting the news business than the Associated Press.
See? Blogs aren't as bad as you think!
By the way, wouldn't it be great if we had one of these about everyone associated with our little Web venture? (Note the "disclosures" section, which particularly impresses me.)
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