When bloggers cross the ethical line

Bloggers ethics have hit the monitor today with questions being asked about “when is the first Valleywag Suicide” going to happen. Given how bloggers feed on bad news, and problematic issues like the Megan Meier MySpace suicide scandal, the issues with Kathy Sierra, and web sites that allow various forms of reputation damaging information, true or not, the odds are likely that eventually a site, any site will find themselves at the forefront of the next highly blogged and publicized suicide.

Here is the issue, people who have followed the news for the last year in the blogging world know that it is not “if someone kills themselves” it is a matter of when. Bad news, snarky news, and generally news that paints all our flaws in daylight can drive traffic. A suicide linked to Valleywag would throw them over the top in relationship to traffic. Bad news always has an audience.

The question we need to ask is “How many of us can stand the light of day”. Then after asking that we should be asking “how many of us can rationally deal with millions of articles that expose what we do in the privacy of our own house”.

There are not many people able to or willing to cope with the 15 minutes of fame that we all say we want, unless it is negative. Negative fame, like the latest Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Amy Winehouse is difficult to deal with. Admittedly they were culpable, but did they handle it well, no. Could any of us not used to this handle it well, no.

Matter of time.

Will Valleywag be responsible? Will there be a lawsuit from the “distraught family”, we know how this works, we know how it ends, we know where this goes. The question is where do we draw the line in our need to be the first, fastest, shiny new blogger on the street. When do ethics matter? This is something that only the blog owner can answer.

We can vote by not going there.