« The Futures Meme | Main | Economists study eBay » July 18, 2007Bloggers vs Journalists reduxA few days ago, David Swedlow and I had a meeting with a PR pro from Business Wire, and we had the blog vs journalism discussion, which is back in the air, nudged along by Andrew Keen's Cult of the Amateur. Keen argues that the great unwashed shouldn't be allowed to publish, but his arguments are extreme and I'm not really interested. However it's great to talk to someone like our PR friend, who's coming from a reasoned perspective and raises very real issues about the place of the professional journalist in a chaotically evolving media environment, where traditional business models aren't working and traditonal media outlets are struggling for mindshare against an explosion of user-generated content, some of it very good. A journalist is taught standards and practices, the intent of which is to create something like objectivity. No one, of course, is completely objective – but journalists make a professional commitment to objective and accurate reporting, and without the practice of journalism we would lose signal in the noise, and we would lose whatever trusted, authoritative sources still exist. I don't think that'll happen, but I understand the concern. And I know that it's tough to be a journalist in this environment. Our friend didn't like the term "citizen journalism." If you lack the training, commitment, and infrastructure of the professional, she figures you're not a journalist and shouldn't be so labeled. I get her point, though I don't agree. There are professionals who've embraced citizen journalism – who want to partner with bloggers to extend research and depend on the blogosphere to provide coverage that market-driven publications can't or won't. From that conversation I felt challenged, productively, to be more than a filter when I'm blogging. My friend said that a journalist's job is to publish new and valuable information, and I realize that it's not enough to simply point to this or that story, originating elsewhere, just because I think it's cool or interesting. It's really only worthwhile to write and publish here what you won't find anywhere else... my original thinking, and views of the world from my own unique perspective. So I'm setting that standard for myself. One other note: I mentioned the blog vs journalism discussion to David Armistead, and he said we already had a good name for the stuff many bloggers are doing: gonzo. jon posted this at 1:07 PM |
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Comments
Lately it seems to me that more bloggers, at least the popular ones, are moving towards being journalists in the sense that they are getting more professional and responsible. This seems especially true to me for the bloggers that use their blogs as either a revenue earner or as a public facing element of their professional practice. What do you think?
Posted by: Jordan Hatcher | July 18, 2007 4:15 PM
I think that's true of one part of the blogosphere, though there's a bazillion bloggers of every stripe, so I think it's hard to generalize. Speaking for myself, I've always taken blogging seriously and seen it as an extension of my professional life. I was trained as a journalist, have an English degree with a specialization in writing, have written professionally for years, and don't see why blogging is any way inferior to other writing I've done. Wait, scratch that: I acknowledge that there were instances where working with a good editor made my writing better.
Posted by: Jon Lebkowsky | July 18, 2007 7:45 PM