by Paul Wallis

Created on: April 17, 2008

I work as an online journalist for Digital Journal.com. Yes, there are big differences between online journalism and any other form of journalism. The code of journalistic practice has had to grow up a lot online.

Print journalism has become a travesty of journalism. You only need to look at the tabloids to see material that even an amateur blog wouldn't touch.

Print media retains a structure which works on relationships between sources, editorial policies, and a standardized methodology. Recycling Reuters and other sources is referred to as "journalism". The basic principles of journalism are tacked on like a sort of ancient ritual. The process is territorial and insular, and "journalistic practice" is used as a blanket term to describe an ethical system that rarely happens in practice.

Ironically, online journalism has had to apply an enhanced form of journalistic practices. Online, journalists can't hide behind a myth of factual substance and huge, insular, media organizations, like the tabloids. Online, we get flak instantly. Anyone who's tried covering American politics recently will know how much flak that is.

One thing I've learned as an online journalist is that you're talking to the world, online, and the world has its own ideas about what you write. That inevitably influences your whole approach to writing.

The audience is very different. You don't get read because you're part of a magazine someone bought. Somebody has to want to read you, and if you're mass producing garbage, they just won't read it. It's an internet myth that you can write any old thing and it will become an instant hit.

Anything and everything, including your sources, will get picked apart. Every word is a potential war zone.

Most importantly, in terms of journalistic practice, everything has to be attributed. You have to provide links to your sources, your material and every word you say is under instant scrutiny.

So your standards of information and writing have to become tougher. This is where the code of journalism kicks in, in a very unambiguous way.

The "code" of journalism does work well, but online it's had to evolve:

A few examples:

Sources need more than "checking". You can't cut and paste, and say "Sources: Agencies". You can quote, but you have to provide original content, and both your sources and that content are under editorial scrutiny. Online publishers aren't interested in publishing rubbish, and they can delete it instantly.

Statements have to be factual, because that's

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