This week, as Sam Whitmore hints, I failed you. I re-blogged a report from a reliable source - Jonathan Dube - without first checking the facts myself.
He writes:
If Cyberjournalist.net says it saw CMP blocking Google News, then it did, as far as we're concerned. But no one else did. Did anyone from Cyberjournalist.net call CMP to ask why it was blocking Google News? You'll have to ask them. All we know is that Cyberjournalist.net filed the blog item and others picked it up.In old-school journalism, publications "beaten" on a breaking story have to rely on their own reporting when following up. At least that's been the tradition. And those who break stories need to pick up the phone at least once to interview whom they're writing about, if not a few times, or several.
To earn the credibility and prestige so many of them deserve, bloggers need to be more than birds on a wire.
Sam is right. Before I rushed to link to Jonathan's report that CMP was blocking links from Google News (it ended up being an accident) and posting my "insiderish" commentary, I should have invested 15 minutes to: 1) verify the accusation with my own tests and 2) contacted Mike Azzara and/or one of the other CMP execs (who I know for many years). At a bare minimum I should called my former supervisor, who is still with CMP's PR department.
I want you to know that I learned a lesson in personal journalism this week and next week I will make it up to you. I have a call scheduled with Mike Azzara to get his complete side of this story. I will ask him about:
- Who CMP is blocking and why
- CMP's plans to roll out blogs and RSS feeds
- CMP's reaction to IDG's Pat Kenealy recent call to ABM member companies to block Google and other search engines from crawling their sites
- TechWeb's plans for its upcoming 10th anniversary
If you think there's anything else I should cover with Mike, please email me or comment on this post. Again, please accept my apologies. Dan, I especially owe you an apology. Let me buy you dinner at BlogOn.
