THINK BEFORE LINK

WHY LINKS?

Providing external link is one of the beauty of the online media as it provides unlimited sources of information to various resources. Link is an additional feature and it makes your website "stand out" among other competitors.  Traditional media like print and broadcast do not have that opportunity but website has. So utilise that feature.

Link is the symbol of truth, accuracy, fairness, honesty and transparency. Your story should be complete  and clear  even without the links. The links should provide additional information. Link is an opportunity to make your news organisation known  wider and enhance its reliablity. "Linking adds credibility," says Tom Brew in Poynter.org.  If you do not link then "reader cannot drill deeper into the story." This is the issue of competition and link is a great  marketing tool too. If you do not link, readers will leave your site and you will lose.

MIX & MAX

Do not make too many links in one story. Make a balanced combination of text, audio, video and photos in the links. Major media organisations including Newsweek have mixed all together.  Research has found that adding too many link does not sound good. Linking trend  has reduced plagiarism and unethical "copy and paste trend."  If you want to provide links of many sites then you can just mention their names but provide the link of only one in each paragraph.


WHAT TO LINK?

* Only related and relevant to your news story
* Very important to make this link
* Promotes journalistic values, ethics and norms
* Encourages democracy, human rights and freedom
* Advocates truth, transparency, fairness and credibility
* Promotes unity,  harmony and  peace
* Helps promote liberal views
* Only reliable sites

WHAT NOT TO LINK?

* Work of plagiarism
*  Violates copyrights
* Too much controversial
* Libelious, pornographic and defamatory contents
* Promotes extremism and terrorism
* Advocates for murder and violence
* Incites hatredness and promotes biasness
* Unethical and unreliable
* Sites with horrific contents

"NO LIFT BUT LINK"

There was enmity and bitter rivalry among the media organisation in the past over the issue of plagiarism. However, the advent of internet has ended that trend. Giving links even if it is a rival media organisation, has become  accepted practice today. We can see the trend of providing external links even in the leading news organisation like  BBC and  CNN  among others. Providing link is very important for blogs and lesser known media organsiation to make it more "credible and reliable." 

IS IT ENDORSEMENT?

No. Providing links to an external site is not an endorsement. It is only to provide greater access to the readers through your website.  "It is service utility to the readers," says Lea Donsky in poynter.org.
Linking to the external site  "does not imply an endorsement or sponsorship of such sites."  But the news media should check whether the external link meet its general editorial guidelines or not.

LINKS TO CONTROVERSY

Nearly 400 years ago, British writer John Milton wrote Areopagitica advocating for freedom of expression.  The essence of his writing was to give freedom to flourish ideas and not to impose censorship.  This is relevant even today.  The work of creative thinking should be given freedom to explore if it is not against the journalistic ethics.

However, there should be no links to the sites which  promote extremism, terrorism and with horrific contents.

ENEMY WEBSITES

No link is given to the enemy websites. When Nepal government declared Maoist Communist guerillas as terrorist organisation, no any link of this organisation was given in government media sites.  There was no link in this Government run newspaper about this Communist run site.

I think,  Hamas run newspapers do not make link to the Israeli newspapers about the suicide bombings.  Some of the friends including Ruth said in the Forum discussion that there is nothing complete objectivity that I think, is right if we see in practice.

THINK THIS BEFORE LINK

Is this relevant and necessary?
Is this ethical?
If yes, then  link.