However,  a sizable portion of the blogger community is what I'd classify as online activists.  And in the real world you can hire an activist to help organize your campaign and that isn't a conflict of interest.  So I guess the question for all of us how do you/is it even possible to distinguish an activist blogger from a journalist blogger and what are the implications of either one getting paid?

In classic fashion, the Republicans sought a distraction from the issue at hand - the Armstrong Williams debacle, not to mention calling off the WMD search - and threw in red herrings for the SCLM to grab.  

Bloggers enjoy, and rightly so, the poetic license if you will, to say anything they want.  It is their site, their opinion, their top news story.  Getting straight unbiased news these days (and by biased i mean conservative) is hard to do.  Bloggers provide that needed glimpse into the real world, the real perspective.

In the case of Armstrong WIlliams, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, (worst of all)Coulter, etc, they all try to pass them selves off as mainstream media with real news.  In reality they are plainly distorting the news. for their own benefit.  

Zephyr has betrayed the liberal bloggers and has given ammo to Novak, WSJ, and other 'journalistic' wingnuts.  I applaud the liberal blogs in coming in defense of Markos and Jerome.  

Blog freely, and blog ethically: but DO NOT blog like a journalist.  You are a blogger.  It's your site, your words.

blog-on.

But, I still admire Zephyr and the important work she has done in the past.  I think people can make a mistake.  It's much easier to word something better when you're not in the middle and when it's a day or so later after 100s of people have chimed in.

As far as I know, this is the only time that Zephyr has named names when she didn't need to.  I would implore the blogosphere and her allies to give her a second chance.

define the difference between bloggers and journalists.

All of this is an interesting question and someting that probably does need to be addressed in places like Harvard and here in the real world but...

In the meantime... to the best of my knowledge (and certainly no disrepect intended to anyone)...

The definition of a blogger is a person with a web site that likes to blab a lot.

Further defined a "political blogger" is someone with a web site that likes to blab a lot about politics rather than say... Britney Spears or cats or... whatever.

Bloggers are not journalists. Are you? Do you Jerome Armstrong see yourself as a journalist?

If you do then you should do your best to live by the established journalistic code of ethics. If you don't yourself that way, and further do not see yourself in some other established ethical light, then the code of ethics you Jerome Armstrong need to live by is...

... your own.

As is the case with each of us. What are our own standards of ethical and moral conduct? How well do we do in living up to these standards in every facet of our lives?

Until such time as a "political blogger code of ethics" is established or bloggers are defined as and accept the established journalistic code of ethics this is all just so much smoke.

The questions that remain are:

Are you Jerome living up to your own standard of personal ethics?

Is Markos living up to his own standard of personal ethics?

Is Zephyr living up to her own personal standard of ethics?

Are any of us?

Nobody is perfect. Mistakes are made and, as humans, we often fail to live up to our own sense of right and wrong. If we do so consciously and with premeditation then we are doubly wrong. Often times however, we do so with perhaps only a mild sense of unease that we have not identified or have rationalized and justified our behavior to ourselves.

If we are properly introspective, with proper personal humility put self aside, review our own behavior, make amends where necessary, correcting our behaviors where necessary then we are living as good a life and behaving as properly as can be asked of anyone.

This is the Way.

Putting self aside in review of our own behaviors and in review of the behaviors of others.

The second reason is that there is no such thing as bad publicity.  This flap has just elevated the visibility of your site (and Kos) exponentially.  More and more people are going to discover the bliss of getting information unfiltered by the MSM.  In turn I believe it will further erode their lock on information.

This is a big wave, you should go for it.

Take a hammer to the glass. Leave the shards that remain. Toss in a few spadefuls of soil. Add azalea, zinnia and rhododendron seeds. Place on windowsill. In two weeks beauty blooms where once was maudlin emptiness.

Politicians, don't blame us for not believing your lies anymore...

Don't blame bloggers for not having jobs that they can be fired from for posting the latest on the lies..  

In the free software world, they have the GPL

The "GNU Public License" and now, Creative Commons, both of which, in part, basically, say that 'we make no claims'. If blogs have a disclaimer that says that they do not expect the 'credibility' that news outlets claim, nobody can say that they are betraying credibility..

But the US corporate media giants and their syncophants want to blame somebody, anybody, EVERYBODY - for the failure of their business models to remain relevant in the increasingly networked world (even though many profits are up - for example in the music world!) Talk about 'tort reform' haha...

The fact of the matter is that people have been deserting mainstream media for years, for example, young people are watching much less TV, and the advertisers and politicians are very worried that the blogosphere is a sphere where they cannot suppress information at will. (Even as they drive people away from TV!)

For example, in the last election, it seems to be that the GOP had a obscenely cozy relationship with the major media, even those outlets that were supposedly endorsing Kerry..

There, the GOP was able to set the frames such that many important issues were never addressed.. But in the blogoshere, people are discussing things that the mainstream avoids..

I would say these are things like the dismantling of Social Security, the huge Federal debt, the broken healthcare system and many politicians, corporations, 'religious figures' and journalists lack of moral values. Other people would say other things..

At the same time, the big media companies are pushing for laws that prohibit fast forwarding through commercials (the NAB and MPAA already claim that this is illegal!) and for laws restricting the issuing of new broadcast licenses to community groups and others..

They also are making certain kinds of radio receivers illegal.. (or example, all new HDTV-capable receivers will be required to carry hardware to prevent time-shifting, even though the betamax case clearly protected a person's right to fair use.)

There has also been a parallel effort to make webcasting unprofitable.. through lots of surcharges.. Get the picture. You will dink Coke or Pepsi, nothing else...

In the blogosphere, ideas are discussed anonymously, so often people say what they think, not what they feel they need to say to keep their jobs...like journalists..

In the past, one or two phone calls by a politician to 'the right people' would kill a story.. Now, its not so easy. And that scares them.

Also, the open nature and transparency of the Internet scares politicians because ultimately, this new technology may hold the key to a revitalization of our political system through collaborative groupware..

In other words, we might someday be able to build a giant blog where we all discuss politics, and then vote..in effect, becoming our own politicians..

Thats what really scares them...

-- THERE IS NO COMPARISON BETWEEN WILLIAMS AND ARMSTRONG/MOULITSAS.  Taking taxpayer money for promotion of policy may be ILLEGAL and is being investigated as violation of FCC regulations sections 317 and 507.  (I'll bet there's more illegal activity here if we spent our time on this instead of handwringing.)

-- The mainstream media has a conflict of interest in reporting anything contrary about bloggers.  Think about it; their future depends on bloggers being suppressed and staying in their place.  Bloggers getting paid means their journo turf has gotten smaller.

-- Ad nauseum, we've heard that bloggers aren't journalists.  Why are we even discussing a standard of ethics for people who are clearly writers that write from a personal perspective?  Or who are repeatedly told they're not journalists?  Why comply with ethics for something you're not?  Who's going to tell all those teenagers out there bleeding their hearts into their blogs in lieu of a diary that they must adhere to some ethic?  The only ethic that bloggers absolutely must adhere to is being authentic.  Really, do we come to bloggers to read more professional journalism?  or do we come here to get personal about issues?

-- Zephyr has an issue that should be pushed back at her.  If she perceived an issue with ethics (and it is HER perception), she should have aired it during the Dean Campaign and insisted on reciprocal disclosures at both the Dean site and MyDD/Kos.  Zephyr, heal thyself!

Now scramble back out of this frame NOW and put the focus back where it belongs.  How many other professional journalists or media corporations violated laws by taking taxpayer money to promote policy?  It's propaganda and it's ILLEGAL!!

p.s. I've blogged elsewhere about this mess, asking whether we should have ethics for bloggers.  I've gotten absolutely no responses and that's rather unusual, given the venue. [-crickets chirping-] Given this, I am going focus on the PAYOLA and PROPAGANDA.

There will, of course, be people in the near future who will act less ethically than Jerome and Kos did in this case -- they will continue blogging without disclosure of the money they receive.  It will be ironic that what Kos and Jerome did in this case actually will be used as a benchmark for future behavior -- full disclosure or ceasing the blog.

What strikes me as also ironic is that many of the reports I've seen attempt to provide a different standard of ethics for bloggers than we expect of journalists.  Does Robert Novak or George Will or left-wing pundits disclose honoria fees they receive from trade groups -- trade groups affected by the legislation that Novak and Will or others provide opinions and/or reporting?  What of the money a spouse receives from a political group or a lobbying group -- money that one of course affects the financial status of the journalist or pundit?  Are those disclosed?  Of course not.

I would add another ethical issue in addition to the intelligent ones cited above:  to the extent that a blogger makes statements about the campaign, can one state that the blogger is making statements on behalf of the campaign or just on behalf of themselves?  One of the issues that was odd about the Dean campaign is precisely the unofficial nature of it -- one could put up a blog and state it was "Dean" for whatever and it could be interpreted as a quasi-official statement, even though it was just one person with a computer who decided to post stuff.

• to what extent do first amendment protections apply to bloggers, to email, to news postings (not just free speech, but freedom of the press)?

• who qualifies for press passes (it seems like an awful lot of high-visibility bloggers are being accorded press access to political events)

• what about confidentiality of sources?

• what about liability for slander or libel

Some of these questions are already the subject of legal cases.