PressEthic

Poynter Online's Vincent Maher discusses a blogger's expose of political fraud and offers interesting analysis of its implications in the realm of journalism.

Press secretary for Sweden’s social democratic party and blogger, Magnus Ljungvist uncovered financial mismanagement and tax evasion linked to the Swedish Minister of Foreign Trade, Maria Borelius. Ljungvist discovered that Borelius had hidden the purchase of a house using off shore bank accounts.

The scandal was exposed through Ljungvist’s analysis of public tax documents. The process is perfectly legal in Sweden due to the Freedom of Information Act, which allows public access to information such as tax returns of government officials.

Bloggers and mainstream journalists alike had been investigating Borelius’ indiscretions; journalists had recently uncovered a scandal involving Borelius’ payments towards her Swedish nanny vs. her Filipino housekeeper.

Ljungvist’s blog expose directed mainstream media attention to the issue, which led to Borelius’ resignation. Yet, mainstream media does not give credit to the blogger’s investigation.

Maher analyzes the effect of the story on journalism as an entity and notes some interesting points:

From a media perspective, this story highlights several important facets of citizen journalism:

Partisanship: Not always bad. Good citizen journalism often relies on some sort of partisanship as a motivator to continue researching a story. (The same thing happened with the Rathergate scandal.) Strangely enough, some of the best citizen journalism is born from a lack of objectivity.

Everyone needs access to information. A well-oiled democratic process requires open access to information -- even for people with an axe to grind, whether they are journalists, political activists, or citizens.

Journalists aren't always objective. The fact that the mainstream media were not looking where Ljungkvist looked could be a symptom of a lack of personal interest from journalists, or a lack of available resources to investigate. Or it could be related to admissions published in a 2000 book that several journalists were paying their houseworkers under the table. This seems to be a widespread problem in Sweden.

Bloggers: Constructive nudging. It sometimes takes a committed blogger to force journalists to address issues they'd rather ignore.

Giving credit. Only very recently have some news organization begun giving Ljungkvist credit for his investigation. This reluctance to give credit indicates an unnecessary degree of embarrassment on the part of the traditional media -- perhaps stemming from us-vs-them paranoia perpetuated by both citizen and traditional journalists.

Maher’s indications are worth thought. Partisanship and lack of objectivity can help to unearth truths. Though they do not have a place in mainstream journalism, the effect of such thought should not be dismissed.

Moreover, it must be noted that bloggers can no longer be treated flippantly.