Kevin O’Keefe at  Real Lawyers Have Blogs asks, Does the public trust bloggers?  The reason for the question was “a recent Forrester report posted by Jeremiah Owyang finding the public doesn’t trust bloggers as much as other sources when commenting on products or services.”  Why should they?

Kevin notes that the answer is the product of a poorly framed question, which assumes that all bloggers are the same.  As anyone who spends time in the blogosphere is aware, it’s the wild west in here.  There are blogs that are outright scams, the ones that use robots to steal posts from others without attribution, and there are blogs that appear to be written by 12 year olds with toilet obsessions.  It’s not like we have to pass a test to start a blog.

But when the question is changed to specific blogs or bloggers, the answer changes as well.  It’s all about credibility.  Who has it and why.  There are three primary types of credibility, attributed, ascribed and attained.  A snitch, for example, is endowed with attributed credibility, because a cop somewhere says that the snitch is trustworthy.  The credibility of the cop is attributed to the snitch, even though the judge doesn’t know the snitch from a hole in the wall.

Lawyers have ascribed credibility.  We are license professionals, having passed a bar exam and been given the imprimatur of the state to be competent to represent people.  Our legal opinions, therefore, are theoretically credible by virtue of our education, licensure and status. 

But the best credibility is attained.  It means we’ve earned it through our efforts to be credible, to be worthy of someone’s belief.  After scrutiny of our actions, comments, thoughts and analysis, readers have come to the conclusion that we can be trusted to be accurate and thoughtful.  To borrow from John Houseman, we obtained our credibility the old-fashioned way; We earned it.

I follow a few blogs.  More than a few, actually.  And feel relatively competent to assess their value and credibility.  Some are exceptionally good, both in terms of providing timely information as well as ideas that expand my understanding and appreciation of the world around me.  Since finding my way to the blawgosphere, I know a whole lot more about the law and the world than I did before.  It has been enlightening.

Some blawgs bring little to the table.  Some are written by people whose intellect is, shall we say, limited.  These are people I refer to as “thick”, as in “thick as brick.”  They don’t, in my opinion, have any depth of understanding, and frequently fail to appreciate the issues and considerations in the things they write about.  I tend not to read these blawgs frequently.  Still, they have their following, people who share a similar intellectual depth I assume.

Some blawgs are dangerous.  They may accurate report facts (often only the convenient facts) and then fundamentally misconstrue or manipulate them to serve an agenda.  These pander to the malcontents who look for others who share their angry views and where they can vent about the people they hate.  These blawgs scare me, feeding the insanity that used to hide in dark corners before the internet provided a blawg for every disreputable point of view.  One would never have known just how many crazies are out there until they have a place to congregate.

But what I can’t help but notice is that my description of the blawgosphere is likely the same as everyone else’s, except that we all place different blawgs in different categories.  What I think of as the crazy blawgs are someone else’s credible blawg.  My “thick” blawg is someone else’s thoughtful blawg. 

Simple Justice gets the occasional reader who happens here because of a google search, and finds some old post on a topic that interests him.  But the reader knows nothing about Simple Justice aside from that solitary post.  And the comment the reader leaves behind, often a nasty one that includes a string of unwarranted assumptions, reflects what comes of a lack of credibility.  To this “hit and run” reader, I have no credibility and am therefore a fair target for their vehemence.  People who agree with you have instant credibility.  People who don’t are short, fat and incredibly ugly.

Would I buy a used car from a blogger?  It depends on the car.  But I would, and do, trust plenty of blawgers and if they tell me that car runs like a top, I would believe them.