Is Making A Blog Post About The Bombings In Boston Unethical?

What would you be posting about? Capitalizing, how?

If you have a news site, it'd be unethincal to ignore the Boston bombings. If you have a dry cleaner website and you're just trying to capture people to come to your site... yeah, kinda sketchy. But even a person with a dry cleaning website can have an opinion that is worth sharing... so... "it depends"!

It's not unethical but it could be insensitive.

Hello Matt,

I agree that if you have a news site, you certainly CAN'T avoid the Boston Marathon bombings. If your site is NOT a news site, I wouldn't try to capitalize on it in terms of promoting anything or making commercial in your message.

With that said, you could provide your thoughts on the incident, as well as talking about the importance of family, life itself, perhaps even tie it into why you have your own business and why you are working hard to help your family. You could mention how we have to work as hard as possible and live life to the fullest while we are here because we are never guaranteed any point in time beyond the here and now.

If you really wanted to, you could provide links to Boston's Red Cross and/or Salvation Army and let people know if they'd like to help that those links would take them there. You should clearly identify that you aren't getting anything out of it, but that you are just trying to help. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, nor with providing your feelings on the matter, along with perhaps a message of inspiration and hope.

Just some ideas - certainly, though, if you don't provide links or try to make your message commercial in any way, I don't see where there would be a problem with posting an entry in your blog about the Boston Marathon bombings. I think it goes to show that you're human. In an indirect way, that would likely benefit you because it shows you're building a relationship with those who are reading it, but just write genuinely about what you feel about the incident - I know there are Internet marketers who have done that in their emails to their lists (I've gotten some); I know I tweeted about it on my Twitter stream (which also appears on my Facebook page).

If you present it properly, I don't think it'd be insensitive - it would just go to show you're human and you care about fellow humans and what is going on in the world around you. Just my 2 cents.

Thoughts and prayers to all in Boston and the surrounding areas.

Take care,

Joe Chengery

Moral behavior is subjective at best. Anyway, you'd be no more unethical than the news is by "exploiting" current events.

It's a call you need to make for yourself but if the statement above is the only reason you are posting the article then yes, I think it's insensitive. But it also depends on the content of the piece. If you are just alerting people or stating facts then I don't see a big issue.

I will share my thoughts on this.

In my honest opinion, sharing this type of negative news now matter how tragic is not beneficial to anyone. It spreads fear. Of course I know that in Journalism their whole business model is set-up around promoting negative news to make money. They teach you that people will only be interested in negative bad news.

I actually remember reading about an account where an experiment was done in a small US town, where the local newspaper ONLY reported positive, uplifting news.

Many people thought the newspaper was crazy and would lose money and not be around long.

So, they did the experiment and their readership did not dwindle, it increased.

The people that do these drastic negative harmful things have an agenda, they WANT the news to be reported so that their (the people who do these evils things) evil power is made known.

They want to instill fear, to be spread fear, and the media because of greed and other things, pass this negative news right into your life, via the internet, tv, radio, etc... everyday. And it does have an effect on a nation, a very bad effect. It instills fear into the hearts of people, and they make very bad decisions based on their fears. The whole stock market of a nation can be effected by one simple negative story, even if it's true or not. This is how you topple nations.

So, my point is that reporting something like this, in the way the media does it in the first place does no good to no one, and to top it off, reporting it to make money is even worse.

The reason I say it does no good to anyone is this, ask yourself... How does knowing what happened help you personally?

I am sure there are some reasons for some people to know what happened, but overall, the nation should not be pumped with negative news. It is tragic I agree, and the people need help, so maybe gear the reporting in way that it helps those in need, and spreads as little fear as possible would be my suggestion, but the media has to beat it to the ground, day in and day out, sensationalizing it, just to squeeze all the money they can out of it.

I figure I will get blasted for this, but I assure you I am not trying to be insensitive, that's not the point at all. I honestly feel for these people, and it is tragic.

JMHHO

I think if it's done from a professional news perspective it's okay.

But to try and capture traffic off a tragedy is wrong.

That being said...if done correctly and emphatically...why not?

Simple - if it's something you feel guilty doing ... then don't do it!

If from the inside you feel your doing the right thing and society is benefiting from it, then by all means .. go ahead and do it !

It depends on what you do ? i cannot judge without seeing it first.

If you have a blog in which you regularly comment on news items, then I think it is perfectly reasonable to write about the event, adding your own voice to the online discussion.

If, on the other hand, you see this as an opportunity to capitalise on short-term search traffic, I would say yes, it is unethical.

My 2c.

Will