Trust and blogging - a new approach

Citizen journalism champion Dan Gillmor is making a fascinating stab at the thorny issue of trust and credibility of sources in blogging. He says that in an effort to make the credibility of individual bloggers more transparent, his new citizen journalism site, Bayosphere.com, which has already asked contributors to sign up to its citizen journalist pledge, is now planning to ask contributors to describe themselves with something called "honor tags". This is according to a post by BL Ochman of whatsnextblog.com.
It says that honour tags will allow: "self-identification by bloggers, PR folks, enthusiasts and several other categories of writers/podcasters/etc." A rough beta of the site, honortags.com, will go live soon.
"The readers get the author's intentions up front. This is *not* meant to be a guage of quality, political positioning (it's totally nonpartisan) or whether the postings are G-rated or pornographic," Gillmor said in an email to members of the Media Bloggers Association.
The tag system will include:
A. Journalist-- "I'm fair, thorough, accurate, open, and in general operate with integrity."
J-News tag: "I write and explain the facts as truthfully and fairly as I can report them. I work for the community interest."
J-POV tag (for reviews and commentary) "I make the case for action based on the most thorough reporting of facts possible. I work for the public interest."
B. Pro(fessional) I hold myself to high standards of: Advocacy. Honesty. Integrity. Expertise. Loyalty.
Pro-Marketing:
"I work for this respectable business. I hold myself to the following standards"
Pro-Employee:
"I write about where I work. I live up to the highest standards of transparency."
C. Advocate/Enthusiast/Fan
"I don¹t claim to know the whole field, but I know this (person, gadget,cause) is the best. I may criticize, but I state my bias without apology.)"
D. Personal (journals, diary, grocery list etc)
"I write for myself and whoever wants to read it. If you find something of use in it, I¹m glad."
E. Fiction
"I made (some of) it up."
F. UnTag
"I like your tag. I don¹t like telling you anything. Figure it out or MYOFB."

It's an interesting approach, of course relies on the honesty of the bloggers, and should be self regulating like eBay.

Matt

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