PressEthic

I must admit that the most excitement generated from my family and friends over my NYU graduate education is in response to my blogs. While many show little interest or grasp of the minutiae of my new journalistic life, everyone I know has “googled” me and checked out the Press Ethics site. Thus, I have come to the conclusion that blogging is here to stay.

A New York Times article discusses the attraction of this forum on college campuses.

As university leaders routinely find their policies and personalities shredded on student web pages, many are taking a “can’t beat them, join them” approach and creating their own blogs. College presidents maintain blogs as a way to communicate with the college community and in an attempt to remain relevant and progressive.

Some use blogs as an uncensored open forum, such as the president of Trinity University, Patricia McGuire:

“When I first started learning about blogs, I said, ‘Well, here I like to discourse on issues of the day, connect with the campus community,’ ” recalled Dr. McGuire, who said she wrote all her own entries. “Here’s a way I can talk a couple of times a week to everybody.”

Other president’s blogs can strive to make the administration appear more relatable. The worst are blatant attempts to permeate the university with propaganda or further an agenda.

Towson University’s Robert Caret acknowledges the motivation behind his blog:

Perhaps it is no wonder that Dr. Caret is not live on the keyboard. An assistant posts the thoughts that Dr. Caret dictates, while an employee in the marketing department screens responses and posts them. “When you’re fund-raising, a big part of that is creating an atmosphere of excitement, of a campus that’s going places,” Dr. Caret said. The blog, he said, “adds to that.”

No surprise, university lawyers urge caution with blogging. University lawyer and adviser, Raymond Cotton, calls the concept of administrative blogging, “an insane thing to do.”

If trustees are dissatisfied with a president, Mr. Cotton said, blogs offer a president’s adversaries ready ammunition. A casual comment taken out of context, a longstanding problem not addressed, or a politically controversial position can all torpedo a president, he said. “In this day and age of political correctness,” Mr. Cotton said, “it exposes the president to all kinds of unfair and unwarranted criticism.”

Regardless of the motivations or trepidations behind the university blogs, the article evidences the permanence of the medium. I find it difficult to find fault with anything that promotes open discourse and a more accessible opportunity to question authority.

Bob Johnson, a consultant to many universities on marketing, said he was mystified that university officials had not generally embraced blogs. Mr. Johnson said student blogs, for example, could be a “hugely effective” recruitment tool, even if they carried the implicit promise — or threat — of uncensored truth, however unflattering. Mr. Johnson encourages presidents to be bold. “Just because you can’t beat them,” he said, “doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it yourself.”