PressEthic

Well, it seems that The New York Times has joined the wonderful world of blogging. According to an article from Editor and Publisher, the NYT’s first blog will be one of many to come.

Here’s one thing from the article on E&P that caught my eye:

Readers will be able to post their views, but the Times will screen them. "Some bloggers will accuse us of violating blogospheric standards of openness and spontaneity," Landman predicted. "That's life in the big city."

Someone help me out here, because I just don’t get what “life in the big city” has to do with it.

Anyway, I’m not sure how I feel about the NYT screening the blog entries. It’s the same process, in a sense, used to decide which “letters to the editor” are published in print versions of newspapers.

But, at the same time, I thought the whole point of blogs is to let everyone add to the conversation, no matter how ridiculous their comments are. Plus, it’s not like the NYT has print space to worry about.

Also from the E&P article, Deputy Managing Editor Jon Landman said the blog will give the NYT a chance to interact with its “sophisticated readers.” Is it possible that the NYT is screening the blogs in an effort to maintain the image that its readers are all “sophisticated”? Sounds like it to me.