Immediacy bites

Here’s a cautionary tale resulting from immediate electronic communications combined with a lack of the fact-checking we’d find in mainstream journalism.

I don’t want to name the parties involved because it will only perpetuate this story. Suffice to say that someone mentioned my name as a representative of an association. In fact, I was merely a member, and a member in name only. I erred in putting this association’s logo at the bottom corner of my Web site. At the time I joined, I was looking forward to this organization’s being useful to me as a communicator.

That turned out not to be the case. When the first person in this saga saw the logo on my Web site, he immediately blogged and podcasted about me and about the association without speaking with me or even emailing me. Right away, I communicated to him that I was merely a member of this association and not an active one at that. In fact, I told him I was disappointed in this organization, its lack of action and its poor communication with members.

Somewhere along the line, instead of disassociating me from this group, this person instead mentioned my name as a rep of this association to someone else, who looked at the association’s Web site and didn’t think much of it. He found typos there, no real value, etc. So he then gave a negative "review" of the association on his podcast, mentioning my name in connection with it.

As soon as I heard the podcast, I emailed both of these parties to let them know that I had nothing to do with this association other than as a former member. The association logo is off my Web site. I would hope that all of these folks will let their readers and listeners know that I am indeed not a part of the association.

What did I learn from this? Well, I will be a lot more careful when putting someone else’s logo on my site, even discreetly in a bottom corner. I would also encourage my fellow bloggers and podcasters to not be so quick with their trigger finger and to check their sources before posting. Interestingly, when I write for a newspaper or magazine, I always corroborate sources. The magazines I write for even employ fact checkers to further validate any statements I make in an article, from the spelling of a interview subject’s name to how many grams of calcium are in a glass of milk. As a blogger, I have been guilty of not using the same journalistic standards I would normally adhere to if I were writing for a mainstream publication. Up until today, that is!

Lesson learned. Ouch.

Comments

[Lee]

Apols for this. Please see http://bettercomms.blogspot.com/2005/07/and-apologies.html

Lee