Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Blogging: Changing Information, is it okay?

For my research paper for J420, I was able to interview Jeff Finley, an editor for Pioneer Press who also writes for the religion blog "What Do We Believe?".

During the interview, one of the things we talked about was his views on going back and changing things in a blog. I asked him if he thought it was okay, and he said it was okay for things such as punctuation or errors, but not as an opinion.

However, for something like an opinion, he doesn't think it should be changed. Finley said that he writes his posts late at night, and in the morning he has sometimes found himself thinking about the topic differently.

Still, if he is thinking about a post a different way, he will not change it, but instead put his new thoughts in the comments section of the blog. To him, the post is complete, and was a reflection of what he thought at the time.

I'd have to agree. A blog post is a representation of the frame of mind the writer is in at the time of posting/publication. That should not be changed. It is not possible to change it in print, and a blog post should not be different.

This is content-wise, at least. I do agree grammatical errors should be changed. Point of views should be left alone though. It is a viewpoint from a certain point in time.

2 comments:

Sue Kantor said...

Did he say anything about his newsroom's policy on changing blogs? I wonder if there are repercussions for changing a blog, or if it is just frowned upon by this specific editor.

Eric Heisig said...

As far as I know, it is up to the blogger. I'm sure they need to regulate the content and whether it is appropriate or not, but as far as I know they have free reign over the content.