Item: A debate arose on some blogs here Sunday and today about whether blog reporting should have different standards than material for the print newspaper. It came up after the name of a young woman who commited suicide was posted at Huckleberries Online -- something that typically wouldn't be published in the paper. the name came up because Dave posted a police press release verbatim. Steve Smith raised the question at his News is a Conversation blog : Should the blog be subject to the same policies that apply to print?

Shawn Vestal/The Falls: We don't believe there should be different news standards for blogs. Lots of people want to argue that the world of blogs is somehow so transformative that regular standards for news don't always apply (i.e., the allowance of anonymous and psuedonymous comments on blogs). We can't really think of a good reason for it, however, and think that the journalistic standards of the paper should apply.

Question: What do you think? Does the very nature of blogs, online interactivity change the foundation for the way news should be reported?

---

---