Thanks to Larry Geller for his description of a whistleblower lawsuit against United Airlines over working conditions in a call center tucked away in a former storage area in the bowels of Honolulu International Airport. The problem is proximity to a grease trap that services a kitchen operated by Gate Gourmet. The lawsuit alleges that United, along with regulatory agencies, failed to respond to employee complaints and reports that workers’ health suffered.
If you’ve ever been around a grease trap, you know they can be very nasty. Larry puts it all on context very well.
Good job. As a relatively frequent United customer, I’m not happy to be reading of the company’s failure to respond.
On Maui, a controvery over a proposed bottled water operation spilled into the blogosphere and into the mainstream media this week.
The Maui News reported that the organization Maui Tomorrow had removed information about the project from its web site because it said certain allegations about the project were incorrect or could not be verified.
The critical comments about the water project had been posted by Jonathan Starr, who certainly has the experience to know what he’s talking about. Starr is a former chair of the Maui County Democratic Party, past chair of the Maui Planning Commission, and former member of the county’s Board of Water Supply.
According to the Maui News:
Starr said Tuesday that he had never met with Tony Liserre, the developer of the proposed project, and that all the information he had reported in his blog post about the project had been “secondhand.”
He said he felt his post had been effective in raising awareness about the project and provoking discussion about the prospect of exporting water from Maui.
“I feel it was appropriate,” he said. “I feel a public citizen does not have to make sure that every fact is corroborated two or three times by sources the way a journalist does. It is enough to state one’s opinion and what one has heard when one is operating as a public citizen.”
But county Environmental Coordinator Rob Parsons said the post was a major source of misinformation about the project and contributed to an “explosion” of online falsehoods, rumormongoring and hyperbole.
I haven’t seen the original comments, so it’s difficult to assess the situation.
But Starr’s comments about the difference between a “public citizen” and a “journalist” deserve further digesting.
Is it really enough to state your opinion and “what one has heard” when blogging? Comments, anyone?
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Whether a professional journalist or not, the act of publishing, whether on paper, via television or radio broadcast, or via Internet broadcast, is still publishing.
Yes, you’re entitled to opinions, but you are still bound by certain rules which can get you in trouble if you malign publicly with your words.
Great post, Blaine. Well said.
Many of these bloggers call themselves “citizen journalists” (ugh) until they’re caught breaking the rules. Then they’re “just bloggers.”
What’s particularly irritating is when bloggers refer to their products as “news sites,” and their readers suck it down without question. No wonder people don’t respect journalism any more — they can’t tell the difference between journalism and blogging. It’s frightening how naive some people are.
“I read it on the Internet, so it must be true.”
To maintain journalist protections for bloggers there should be some standards and procedures. Identifying op ed vice reportorial or research work is important. Use of quotes and identification of sources as well. That said, there is much non and dis-information from corporations, governments and corporate media. “Citizen journalists” or “bloggers”, either way, are required to steer this polity back to Republic status. The integrity of information requires diversity, real investigative reporting, an alert citizenry and protections of law for quality to exist or return. Specially in monopoly media locations.
Bloggers run the gamet, just like print media and tv. From Fox TV to the “newspapers” sold next to cash registers at Longs, there is a range of info, facts, inuendoes, and wierd stories. Read from what you trust. Think as you read. Don’t assume that a school text book is accurate. Question. Use your brain. That is why we have one.
Ian’s question was not what responsibilities the reader of blogs, press releases, and other media has to sift through everything and figure out what seems to be most true.
He was asking what the responsibility of the blogger is to his readers.
I think the blogger owes full disclosure. If what he or she is blogging is just opinion or hearsay, then make that clear.
But if they are claiming to fill the gap left by the collapse of the traditional journalism, then I believe they need to go beyond opinion, ideology, and hearsay, and seek confirmation in witnesses, the record of events, the results of research, and direct observation.
It is that journalistic ethic that keeps bringing me back to this blog because I believe that Ian is interested in digging out the facts behind the stories rather than just running with the latest spin.