I am not a blogger. But as a career newspaper journalist, I can no longer ignore bloggers.

Bloggers are a new generation of writers on the Internet who report and comment on a wide range of issues with many more different voices and viewpoints than heard in the traditional media.

When netizens are setting the news agenda, bloggers help fan the flames.

For instance, netizens helped boost the TV ratings of last year's Hunan Television Supergirls Show, which was modelled after the popular programme Pop Idol. And bloggers' passionate comments drew yet more viewers to the show.

Hu Ge's short video "The Blood case that started from a steamed Bun," was an Internet-disseminated parody of the mega-budget film "The Promise." The work aroused heated debate in cyberspace, and also prompted full pages of reviews and comments on the controversy in the traditional print media.

No wonder some leading journalists and researchers have renewed warnings that newspapers are dying. More and more people are turning to the Internet not only for news and information, but also for opportunities to publicize their opinions and share what they believe to be news.

Lu Han, from China Media Research Centre, pointed out in a recent report that the decline in profitability of newspaper advertising heralds the sunset for this medium. As in the West, surveys in China are showing that young people now get their news and information mostly from the Internet. The number of Chinese newspaper readers under the age of 30 declined by 27.8 per cent between 2001 and 2005.

It's a global trend. "A new generation of media consumers has risen, demanding content delivered when they want it, how they want it, and very much as they want it," the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch was quoted as saying by AFP.

However, new media still require guidelines if they are to build and maintain credibility. While recognizing the increasing popularity and influence of bloggers, societies ought to develop codes of conduct and ethics for blogging. This is essential if bloggers want to acquire and hold public confidence and trust.

And the issue must be addressed soon before more ground is lost. Occurrences in the blogging world are already going against established journalistic principles.

For instance, one Chinese university professor filed a lawsuit against a student of his, whom he alleged published things on his blog that were defamatory.

In the United States, netizens cannot but be disillusioned to have learned that purported remarks by George Clooney as a guest blogger on the HuffingtonPost.com blog last week turned out to be comments taken from traditional news media like newspapers and TV interviews without the consent or approval of Clooney himself.

In fact, experts in China are starting to address the problem of bloggers' credibility. Chen Youxi, deputy secretary-general of the Association of Chinese Lawyers on Intellectual Property Rights, and Zhu Cuiping, professor of law at Fudan University, recently advocated that bloggers must accept responsibility for regulation of their conduct on the Internet.

Anonymity on the Internet does offer people a good opportunity to express their opinions in full, and the virtual world enables people to reveal innermost thoughts that might remain hidden in real life.

But in addition to the important concerns of national security, social harmony and commercial secrets, blogging should not become a public medium for people to slander, mislead or cheat, or to violate the intellectual property rights of others.

In this regard, time-tested journalism principles and codes of conduct and ethics may offer a guide for bloggers.

Email: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/23/2006 page4)