Social Transparency and the New York Times
Hot on the scene this morning is this post on the New York Times trying to get Amber Naslund to change her editorial because it criticized an aspect of their publishing process which they wished to conceal. The details are well documented in her post, but that’s not the issue I wish to discuss.
I think this issue shows a basic desire that people have for media to become transparent. I recall the Wal-Mart scandal involving the fake blog and makes me think about how angry people were, not because the blog was coming from a corporate slant, but that it pretended to not have that slant. Essentially, what Wal-Mart (and the New York Times) is being criticized for is attempting to spin their image in a certain way. They are being criticized for failing to be transparent online.
What does it mean to be “transparent”? Why do we within the scene seem to feel more tolerance towards certain kinds of spinning (or sphinning, as the case may be) than others? We hail Kevin shaving his head for charity, knowing damn well it is a great PR stunt, and then gleefully watch it, blog about it, and retweet it. We will turn right around and ridicule other celebrities and corporations for doing similar things.
Why is this? What is the difference? What does this demand not for objectivity or lack of bias, but for transparency about that bias, reveal about our ethical intuitions involving the online world?
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