Blogging 101

I've read a few comments on blogs insisting that the blogger needs to "be fair." Here on this blog, a reader once told me that I couldn't "flesh out" one candidate's resume while "summarizing" another's. More recently, a commenter suggested that I should include an "equal number of articles slanted to the opposing view" to balance links to articles at the Christian Science Monitor and Georgetown University.

Is there a perception out there that blogs are legitimate news sources? They are not. Blogs are . . . internet weblogs. Live Journals. Editorial columns. Opinion pages. Bloggers aren't held to the same standards as journalists reporting hard news. Bloggers are not expected to be unbiased.

This is not to say that you can't learn something from reading blogs. I've been exposed to lots of things I might not have learned about any other way, and I've grown from the opportunity to see the world through others' lenses by reading their blogs. But when I want to learn more about something, or to state anything other than a personal experience as fact, I go looking for a legitimate news source to learn more.

I'm pretty clear about what I do here: Yeah, but Houdini didn't have these hips: Life, the universe, and motherhood according to me. I'm a feminist, a liberal, a Presbyterian, and mom to two amazing little girls, one with Down syndrome. All that is reflected here, along with whatever I might be feeling at the moment (quite often, it will be exhaustion).

And I'm a pretty straightforward, open person. What you read is what you get!

So what is the source of the crazy idea that one needs to present all sides of an issue in every conversation?

If I'm selling something, I focus on the best features of my product. And if I'm selling against a competitor, I also point out the competition's weaknesses. We all do that, every day, and not just on sales calls.

When I tell my children that they can't have chocolate milk for supper I don't point out that chocolate milk has just as much calcium as white milk, in addition to added sugar and fat. (Fortunately, this is a hypothetical situation. My children don't yet realize that chocolate milk is an option.)

When I compliment my husband's hair cut, he prefers me NOT to point out if I think parts of his hair are lighter in color or shallower in depth than once they were.

I don't believe that it's appropriate lie or to deliberately mislead. But there's a big difference between making your case and not making someone else's.

Take politics, for example. If I'm blogging about my candidate, I'm going to focus on what I like about her. If I'm blogging about her opponent, I'm going to explain why I don't support his candidacy.

Should I also list my candidate's weaknesses and her opponent's strengths? Maybe. But I have no idea what you might see as my candidate's weaknesses and your candidate's strengths. These things are opinions, not facts. I can only tell you what I feel and why.

*

Back in the heat of the pre-election season last fall I offended someone. I'm sure that she's a nice woman, and I know that we have some pretty significant things in common (like children with Down syndrome).

But I offended her here and she left angrily and since then a few commenters who care about her have occasionally stopped by this blog under various pseudonyms to lambaste me for it. The whole situation was unfortunate and emotions ran high on all sides, but these folks sure say some ugly things to me.

I am human. And I have my pet peeves. One of them is being told what to do. I can complain about being tired, but the easiest way to insure that I won't go to bed is to tell me to do so. If someone told me, "You have to breathe oxygen!" I'd probably puff out my cheeks, hold my breath, and start composing an essay about what's actually in the air we breathe.

I don't like to be told what to do.

So. A woman I didn't know commented on a blog post and her comment started with, "You have to be fair!"

I quoted her as I was replying to her, but I was having a really hard time getting past the "you have to" part. So I left it out. But I left in her typos/grammatical errors. Then that felt petty. So I fixed them. Then it just felt really weird to have edited her remarks as I replied to them (I left her original comment as she posted it; I edited only in my reply).

And of course she was offended. And her friend(s) were offended, and here we sit. Every few months, someone comes by and instead of disagreeing with me respectfully - a good way to have a conversation with me, for the record - they start off with hatred and derision and insults and point out that I once corrected the grammar of a really nice lady.

I'm sorry for that. I hope we can get past it. In future, I'd prefer constructive, respectful disagreement here.