Editorial Walls: The Good, the Bad, and the Virtual

A post last week in which I wrote approvingly of editorial walls provoked some discussion of the merits of the term. That discussion might have been sufficient for me if it hadn’t been for a coincidental tweet over the weekend from Josh Gordon. Without comment, he linked to an old blog post [...]

Ethics: Is Transparency All We Need?

For most practitioners of new-media journalism, the key to ethics is transparency. So long as you disclose all your biases and interests in what you write about, you’re OK. The rest of the traditional guidelines in which journalists have been trained are up for discussion, it seems. The latest and, to me, most mind-boggling example [...]

Ethics and Content Marketing: Ex-BW Writers Weigh In

As journalists continue to witness the decline of traditional job opportunities, more of them are looking closely at content marketing.  Consulting journalist Paul Conley has argued for several years now that content marketing represents one of the most promising career choices for journalists. Similarly, but from a marketer’s perspective, David Meerman Scott has told journalists [...]

Editorial Ethics, Yes; Rigidity, No

I am a firm believer in a strong code of editorial ethics, as many editors who’ve worked with me would be all too quick to affirm. But I also believe that to be successful, a code of ethics must be flexible, adapting organically to the norms and expectations of different media and communities. Recent evidence [...]

B2B Posts of the Week: The Fate of Print, FTC, and Video

This week saw more discussion of the future of trade publications, helpful guidance on the FTC blogging guidelines, and a tale of two videos.

Reports of Death Exaggerated: “How Trade Publications Can Capitalize on Content Marketing and Social Media,” Tom Pick, The WebMarket Central Blog, 11/18/09.

Following up on his trenchant summary last week of the ills [...]

New Ethics for New Media? The FTC and Press Junkets

Since the publication earlier this month by the Federal Trade Commission of new guidelines on endorsements and testimonials, the place and nature of ethical guidelines in the new-media world have been a hot topic. The guidelines, frankly, are plain stupid. But they do shine an interesting light on how new media ethos is shifting from [...]

Truthiness and the Dark Side of New Media

True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society by Farhad Manjoo. Wiley, 2009

The Internet is cool, and it is easy to mistake coolness for goodness. So for every few new-media optimists I read, I like to pause for a quick a dose of counterbalancing pessimism.

The latest dose for me comes from Farhad Manjoo’s True [...]