K. Paul Mallasch put together some good thoughts (and a good springboard) about credibility and transparency, and their relationship to online media - figured I would chime in a bit. Blogs and a lot of online-only media were started with the idea of “differing” with the way that the previous few hundred years of news and commentary were performed. It’s not at all about doing it better (though some might disagree) - it’s about doing something in a manner that you think is more accommodating to the reader. Whether acting as a proxy or filter to people interested in a topic or topics that you are, or offering commentary on news events that differs from what some of the “mainstream” columnists have to say, blogs are doing their thing.
By transparency, I mean the publisher of the website to be available on the website as an ongoing character or persona, giving their personal input on what the website is doing. Personality and personalization on a small scale will help the public trust the online publication, I believe. This has never really been the case in traditional media.
At the same time, blogs are full of fact checkers - it’s almost a prerequisite for many blog-related activities, it seems. And the one thing that bloggers are good at is digging things up, or going the extra mile on a story or idea. This is where transparency comes in. Readers aren’t necessarily aware of the political beliefs or other personal “biases” that might be going on in the head of a newspaper journalist - by design. Columnists pretty much have their cards on the table - again, by design. In blogging, most people know what is going on behind the scenes with sites they read. Many bloggers disclose their day jobs, their opinions, or their biographies to the world. Since many blogs don’t exercise “journalism” to the letter (though some do) or have a j-school grad at the helm, it’s helpful to have some helpful hints about the author or authors - this is where the transparency comes in. Disclosure is key here - is s/he a conservative or liberal, tech-savvy or not, or whatever. Newspapers and other publications have built in credibility (let’s not argue about this) for the most part - bloggers don’t start with it in every case.
Mallasch closes by asking “How important do you think credibility is? Can transparency help in gaining credibility?” It’s obviously important - possibly one of the most important things when it comes to blogs. If people get disillusioned about a site or source, they may leave, never to return - and tell their friends to do the same. Transparency is an excellent first step in gaining street cred (RSS cred?), and is definitely something I’ve started to see more of as I peruse the blogosphere. As a for instance, I recently tried to make it clear what the advertising guidelines were on TMD, which you can read here. Beyond this, I’ve seen disclaimers and terms like this one at Baseball Crank and a few other sites. Obviously there is the possibility of “fake” credibility gained by putting one of these up, as they are easily cut-and-pasted into a site, readers are pretty good at separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes down to it.
So getting back to the questions, the short answers are “yes” and “yes.” However, concepts like transparency aren’t one-time things - they can’t just be posted and then forgotten about, like a photo - they should be ingrained in however a publisher decides to put forth his or her content.
