We work with the media a lot, so I’ve been interested in the debate about whether bloggers and people who have dubbed themselves “citizen journalists” should be protected in the same ways that journalists are.

Much of the discussion has been around cases in the US, and because I’m trading in ideas here, I’ll draw on an example set by our southern neighbours. I’m also simplifying greatly, in the interest of brevity. This is a much bigger issue than what I discuss here.

A recent case (this December) involved a lawsuit against a blogger, where the plaintiff was awarded $2.5 million¹. The judge in the case needed to determine whether the blogger in question should be protected by the law that gives certain privilege to journalists. Laws like this are designed to ensure that journalists can speak freely; that the risk posed to people who might suffer damage from such free speech is outweighed by the benefit to society of the free flow of uncensored information. In this case, the judge ruled that the blogger did not deserve this protection².

There is no doubt that for our society to function fairly, we need to allow information to flow freely. And, in order for facts to flow, we need to make sure that there isn’t unreasonable risk to the people sharing.

My problem is that I don’t think many of those “citizen journalists” have earned their title. [and neither have many “traditional” journalists - I had an interesting argument with SunTV’s lawyers about this last year ³ - Click here to see the entire conversation.]

My job as a strategist in the advertising world is to help clients sell their product. I also know that part of my job is to make sure that in doing so, I’m not misleading a consumer. That doesn’t, in my mind, mean that I must “not lie”. I think that the idea of not lying as a standard is a cop out. We’ve all heard of political campaigns, product endorsements and advertising that, while not telling a lie, misleads the people who hear or read it. Not lying isn’t good enough.

As an advertiser, I (and we) have a certain amount of power to sway people’s opinions and beliefs, and I’m very aware of how we use our influence. I don’t want to be known as an advertiser with questionable ethics. I want to be known as a creative, compelling, honest advertiser, and one that puts the diligence in “due diligence”. And fortunately for us scrupulous ad men (and women), packaged properly, the truth is compelling in a way that subtle misinformation never will be.

When an advertiser seeks to mislead their audience, I judge them harshly – and I think others do too.

I think we need to set a similar standard for people to meet before we recognize them as a “journalist”. I’ve seen people who fit under the traditional definition of “journalist” using unethical and misleading statements, and I’ve seen well-researched bloggers making compelling arguments. Simply defining the term based on the medium they use is too simplistic.

In the end, we need to do a better job of clearly identifying what we expect of those who we, as society, choose to protect. And, as always, I hope that rational thought, and not traditions or legal or semantic arguments, wins the day.