Be a postjournalist, the opposite of a journalist.
Fight lies and double standards.
Serve an audience.
Write about the topic itself, don't inject politics.
If you'd just repeat somebody else, link instead.
Invent your own formats if conventional ones aren't the best.
Be right about facts. If you make a mistake, run a correction that's more prominent than the mistake.
Talk with other postjournalists in public, not in private. Don't let groupthink think for you. If you do talk with other postjournalists in private, disclose anything relevant to your postjournalism to your audience.
If you're covering a controversy, link to at least two sides in their own words.
Try not to use confidential sources. Only do it for a good reason. If you promise someone confidentiality, you have to keep that promise, so don't do it lightly.
Don't delete unless you legally have to. If you want to retract something, leave it up with a correction.
Don't censor. Do things censors would censor if they could, so people will know you don't censor.
Don't cover your friends or other intimates, not even with disclosure.
Don't cover your past or present advertisers, not even with disclosure. Don't accept advertising deals with topics of your past stories. This applies both to individual postjournalists and entire outlets — if you're doing a piece for somebody else, don't cover their advertisers either.
Don't cover topics connected to charitable donations or gifts you have given or received, not even with disclosure. If you are given a gift connected with subjects of your past or future postjournalism, it should be refused, returned to the giver, and disclosed.
Don't let other individuals select your topics. You may put topic choice to an audience vote if you have a large enough audience, but individuals may be manipulating you into promoting things they're connected with.
Disclose any purchases made for a particular piece in that piece.
Disclose any business deals you make as a postjournalist, or that have relevance to what you're doing as a postjournalist. You may be paid for postjournalism itself by your audience. Any donation or crowdfund money should be handled transparently, and completely returned if used in ways that don't match what the donors thought they were paying for when they donated.
Make your disclosures prominent and easy to find.
Don't put some content behind a paywall but other content in front, or the incentive will be to make your public content an advertisement for your own service rather than good in its own right.
See money as a dangerous contaminant. It makes the giver your master, and then your work is tainted. You have to avoid any tainted topics, so try to advertise products unrelated to your postjournalism. Audience money is a safer toxin, but it still has to be handled carefully.
Understand that no one piece and no one person has the complete story. Whatever you do is just one part of the whole. Link other sources to round out what you do. Let the audience participate to make corrections and fill in the gaps. If you get enough responses, do a followup piece about the responses that highlights the best ideas, as well as the most popular and the most different.
If someone asks you to break these rules, don't do it, and transparently share their request with your audience.
Don't work with journalists. They won't follow these rules.
No comments:
Post a Comment