Feeling Listless

December looms, the Month of Lists and prognostications. For example:

Five essential tips for traveling with your dog

Five vital components to succeed in business

Five things to consider when choosing an eating disorder cure

Conspiracy Theories: Top Five List


And there's a whole sub-genre just for social media:

Five ways social media will change journalism

5 Tips to Bring Out Your Inner Social Media “Kung Fu”

Five ways social media can save you money

5 Ways Social Media Marketing Can Help Your Business

5 stages of a blogger's life

5 Ways to become a Better Blogger

Keep in mind, this is just a recent sampling of the “Fives” -- Ten seems to be the preferred list length, Letterman-style. But whatever the length, the List Blog Post is getting very tired. In fact, if I were to list my Top 5 Things I Dislike about Social Media, Lists would be on the list. And solely in the interests of completeness, here's the other four items:

1. Authenticity
   There's a lot of unnecessary punditry claiming a greater authenticity in social media; A belief that somehow bloggers, Twitterers and the rest are encouraged by the form to exercise greater veracity and to hove closer to the facts of thing. Apparently, it just doesn't do to overtly sell, blatantly misinform or pretend to be other than who you are. Why social media should change a long media tradition of peddling falsehoods eludes me. Not that I'm advocating this, mark you, just that I have a more realistic expectation of what people do. And indeed, are doing. Social media is no more authentic than any other medium – in fact, the form invites some invention and evasion. While it might be theoretically best to be authentic and open, the evidence suggests social media hasn't changed basic human nature much at all.
   
   
2. unNews
   More is often less. There are 20 zillion bloggers and countless online news organizations, but there really isn't any more news in the world. Almost everything we read online is regurgitation, the retreading of actual news from other places. What social media has done is given everyone the right to express an opinion; A noble thing, but often confusing and sometimes an obfuscation to the facts of the news.
   
   
3. Paradigm Shiftiness
   I'm tired of reading how social media is changing the known universe, reinventing marketing and altogether turning our world upside down. The shifty characters peddling paradigm shifts have some well-argued points to make, and there's no question that the media landscape has forever changed. It's also true that many of these experts stand to make money if we all buy into their paradigminess.
   
   
4. Polarizing Bears
   When Sarah Palin talks about her Momma Grizzly Bears, she could more accurately be referring to Polarizing Bears. Especially in political circles, social media has become hostage to extremes. Instead of encouraging dialogue it encourages division. It has become the home of the zealot and the fringe.

Bloggers need an Ombudsman

Ask any First Amendment lawyer and they'll tell you that the press have the right to be wrong. Journalists can and do make mistakes all the time, and in the vast majority of cases the usual recourse is to print a correction after the fact, usually unsatisfactorily buried somewhere at the back of the newspaper. But what happens when this isn't enough, when the law is broken, or when there's a disagreement about the facts of the issue?

Enter the Ombudsman. Almost all major daily newspaper and most magazines employ someone to act as a referee between the publication, its editors and reports, and external parties. The Ombud* works off a code of business ethics and the existing laws that protect against libel, slander and the like. They will vet a complaint and try and arrive at a fair outcome. They exist as a recognition that the mass media command a loud megaphone, and the subjects of which they write usually do not.

Often, the Ombudsman is trying to balance contradictory ethical and legal issues, such as with the New York Times' coverage of the Duke University rape case. Other times, they're dealing with issues that can seem entirely absurd, as with criticisms leveled by Fox News at producers of the kids show Sesame Street, which did a very funny parody of cable news shows, including Fox.

Ombudsmen exist in other walks of life too, including politics. Even the large industry analyst firms employ them. And if you blog at a reputable publication's website, the ombudsman will pay attention.

Many blogs now purport to be legit news outlets, and a lot live up to the billing. But to be credible, they need to be accountable – and most fail at this. And having the ability to post a comment at a blog does not in any way constitute a retraction or formal correction.

What bloggers need is an Ombudsman of their own. They need an independent third-party that will provide redress when bloggers get it wrong. Recent FTC rulings could be enforced, along with much broader issues about conflicts of interest. One approach would be to have someone like the Organization of News Ombudsman (ONO) take on the role, possibly by certifying blogs that they work with and providing an Ombudsman that could deal with complaints across their member bloggers.

Credibility is one of the hallmarks of great journalism, and independent bloggers will struggle to gain this level of trust with their readers until they are more accountable.

*(apparently a gender-neutral and politically correct reference, although to me it sounds like something you'd plant in your yard)

The chicken was first

Sometimes you bump into a website and rediscover why it's called the World Wide Web, and why it's cool. Ask500People is a relatively simple mashup/social computing site, but it's oceans of fun. Ask a (relatively) random sample of 500 people anywhere in the world a simple question, any question, and see the answers stream in real-time, with location information and voting patterns. Is Hillary going to win? Ever smoked hash? Is marriage archiac? Can you calculate the mean of these five numbers?

And it's official: the chicken came first, but only just.