When bloggers and journalists meet
by Laura Scott

Odds are if you're reading this you're familiar with blogs. By now, the blogarama has become pretty much a world defined on its own terms: It is what it is. And my guess is that unless you work in the world of print journalism, live with someone who does, or just read Romanesko regularly -- if only out of curiosity -- you wouldn't think there was anything inherently wrong or odd or vaguely offensive about blogging.

Would you?

The idea of self-expression by uncredentialed people writing prose (or typing text, anyway, and with varying degrees of skill or accomplishment, or utter lack thereof) nevertheless seems to offend certain members enjoying employment in certain quarters of our thing we call the media culture. This comes part and parcel with greater general anxieties about the Internet itself. Newspaper revenues are down. Staffs are being cut. Newsroom and corporate cultures are being challenged.

Not so long ago a reporter expressed the oddly horrific reporters seeing information armageddon as a preferable alternative to the Internet.

If the Internet permanently crashed tomorrow, I'd be thrilled.

"Thrilled." Wow. Now that's something.

Yet some people, like journalism teacher Mindy McAdams, are openly crying for change in newsrooms:

Quit pretending that the stuff you put in there every day is useful. Much of it is not, and you know it.

Invite the public in. Beg for comments as well as personal stories. Involve them in re-creating their local news resource....

Tear up your news hole. Destroy it.

The New York Review of Books ran an article by Sarah Boxer about how blogs are challenging the standards (or lazy comfort, take your pick) of the journalist ranks. Mentioned in the article are books with such hysterical titles as "Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob," "Blogwars" and "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture."

"Cult," eh? "Killing" our culture? Let's go round up the usual suspects.

So what is a blog, anyway? A handbill? A newsletter? A broadside? According to Boxer:

Blogging at its freest is like going to a masked ball. You can say all the spiteful, infantile things you wouldn't dream of saying if you were in print or face to face with another human being. You can flirt with anyone, or try to. You can tell the President exactly what you think of him. You can have political opinions your friends would despise you for. You can even libel people you don't like and hide behind an alias....

...Blog writing is id writing—grandiose, dreamy, private, free-associative, infantile, sexy, petty, dirty. Whether bloggers tell the truth or really are who they claim to be is another matter, but WTF. They are what they write.

These things may be true, but blogs have a more serious purpose, and have been playing a significant role in coverage of public affairs -- especially politics ... and media itself.

Journalist grandmaster Russell Baker wrote on the importance of blogs in journalism just last summer:

At present the Internet is basically an electronic version of the ten-year-old boy on a bicycle who used to toss the newspaper on the front porch: an ingenious circulation device. Of course it is also an invaluable resource for research and fact checking. Today's reporter with a laptop has nearly immediate access to material that once required lengthy and often futile searches in the paper's "morgue." It should only make reporting and editing better.

Blogging is a more interesting development, perhaps because bloggers are so passionate about it. It is a valuable restraint on careless and sloppy journalism, for the vigilance of the bloggers misses not the slightest error or the least omission, and the fury of their rage is terrible to bear. Committed bloggers insist that they are practicing journalism just as surely as a correspondent like John Burns is practicing journalism when reporting on the Iraq war from Baghdad for The New York Times. Anyone wishing to debate the point must be ready to argue all night and well into next week. What is indisputable is that practically every blogger can now be a columnist. With vast armies of columnists blogging away, it seems inevitable that a few may eventually produce something original, arresting, and refreshing and so breathe new life into this worn-out journalistic form.

Still the old clash of cultures persists. Just today Amy Gahran passed on the news that a CNN producer was fired for blogging. Dooced in 2008. Ouch!

How galling it must be to the fiercest old media nostalgists that the National Press Club is opening its doors to (gasp!) bloggers.

This partnership recognizes the value of citizen journalism and helps spread awareness of its importance to the new media landscape. This is the first time in the National Press Club’s history that it has reached out to a non-traditional news outlet.

Opening doors -- it's a good thing, right?

Contributing Editor Laura Scott blogs at pingVision and rare pattern.

Submitted by Laura Scott (view blog) on Wed, 02/20/2008 - 23:49

Comments

 

Check out Newsweek's review of Boxer's
anthology

And my take on it.

Just what you're talking about...a weird threatened response that has to ignore reality to make a case.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.org

Submitted by Elisa Camahort on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 00:37
 

Couldn't agree more

(and I agree about not lumping, as other comments note)

Just take this article from today for example - detect the "but the MSM would never do that" line in an otherwise completely not-newsy item?

Sigh - the thing that bugs me so much is that I know, we KNOW that MANY of the traditional journalists are excellent at what they do. Excellent. I don't deny them what it must feel like to be observing all the change, but that is not a reason to level the kinds of disrespect that many do.

Again - no lumping - but a lot of this is out there and I'm not the only one who has experienced it firsthand, even as a freelance writer long before I blogged.

Jill
Writes Like She Talks

Submitted by Jill on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 09:16
 

Let's not lump all newspapers together

When we talk about "traditional" media, we typically mean big-city daily papers, national/television networks, the "big" guys.

I'd like to make the case for "local journalism", as practiced by local newspapers and even, local television stations. The two newspapers here in my area of suburban St. Louis are the last remaining independent and locally owned papers. They're also great newspapers. They're relevant. They cover stuff that matters in our schools, neighborhoods, communities. They pull us together with stories about people we know, or know someone who knows. They're fresh, import none of yesterday's news from the New York Times. They're passionately persuasively local.

Doesn't this sound a lot like blogging except with paper and punctuation?

And isn't that exactly what bloggers do, create community -- geography-free, yes but all the same, community?

[disclosure: my food column is featured in my local newspapers; I've had opportunities for far greater circulation but love that my column is in a good paper, a 'real' paper that 'belongs' to the community]

Alanna Kellogg, Kitchen Parade

Submitted by Alanna Kellogg on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 06:58
 

I did not mean to lump everyone together

I agree with you. And I would count some of the biggest organizations as "getting it" -- at least to the extent that they are embracing these changes and starting to do things like embrace community. (Disclosure: I work with some of these companies.)


Laura Scott
BlogHer Contributing Editor for Technology & Web
design, snap, blog

Submitted by Laura Scott on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 09:05
 

It's funny and Infuriating

The relationship between bloggers and journalists is one that's been troubling to many people for a long time. Certainly, to the general public who are increasingly annoyed by the fact that most of our major daily papers are filled with information from the AP, and as such, utterly irrelevant to most of our lives. Perhaps that was a bit harsh, but please tell me how one or two monolithic news sources can really address the diverse needs and desires fr information that we have?

I have found that places like BlogHer actually offer me up better information than i can find in traditional media sites, because bloggers - put on the defensive by claims that they are inferior to their journalist counterparts - are so careful to cite their sources, provide links to research etc....

But more than that, they provide a way to get a sense of how "the people" feel about an issue, which often has as much bearing on the impact of an issue on our lives as the issue itself.

Needless to say, this is something that I think about a lot as we gear up for JUST CAUSE to leave Beta and launch for real next month. (With a few great bloggers that many of you helped me find.) We, as a media outlet (traditional in that we are launching a national print magazine and are hiring "real" journalists to create original content for both our print and our online publication) , are officially taking the stand that bloggers are IMPERATIVE in order to have a complete understanding of any issue. The simple act of our disseminating information does not create understanding. The act of people being able to respond to it, learn from each other, explore ideas together - that creates understanding. And that's the mission - or should be - of new media. Not just tossing out information to the masses, but trying to create understanding and dialog about issues.

In some ways, maybe it's easier for us. we only cover "causes." So we are asking people to share their personal passions and solutions, so we can "justify" asking for personal takes on things. But, in yesterdays staff meeting we were specifically discussing the "ratio" of our editorial content and our blog content. We're striving for equality..... We're putting the two on equal ground....

Okay, that's my rant for the day. Off to work. Stay tuned......
___________
Alyssa Royse
JUST CAUSE
make some good news!
www.JustCauseIt.com

Submitted by alyssaroyse on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 09:17
 

If They'd Step Up...

I've got two personal blogs and one not-so-personal one. The not-so-personal one is about birth/first parents. If the current media would cover birth parents in a legitimate fashion and not trivialize the experience or make every situation out to be a scary Lifetime movie, there wouldn't be a need for voices like mine. Many bloggers who are writing to promote change are doing so because traditional medias won't step up and get the work done.

Someone has to do it. Might as well be a bunch of amateurs. ;)

-
Jenna
Stop, Drop and Blog
Birth/First Parent Blog
The Chronicles of Munchkin Land

Submitted by JennaHatfield on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 10:24
 

I couldn't agree more!

And that's a "cause" i can get behind. let's talk!

I think the whole notion of expert and amateur is really changing. There was a time, i think, when the "media" had access to information that the rest of us didn't have, and that made them not only necessary, but exclusive. The internet has changed that, and the paradigm has has shifted diametericly.

We are the new media. Especially as bloggers adopt the important journalistic mores of citing resources etc..... It has become and essential source of information that we wouldn't get otherwise.
___________
Alyssa Royse
JUST CAUSE
make some good news!
www.JustCauseIt.com

Submitted by alyssaroyse on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 11:57
 

Funny You Say That

I've been to your site a few times. I've desperately wanted to create something for adoption reform in general. Not just how the media continuously portrays birth parents in a negative light but for all aspects of adoption that need changing. (Open records for adoptees, unbiased counseling for expectant parents considering placement and potential adoptive parents, and for agencies to be held to a higher ethical standard. Just a few things!)

But my anxiety gets the better of me at times and I always click away, scared that no one wants to hear it.

E-mail me at mrsjennahatfield at gmail dot com if you'd like to discuss this further. Don't want to hijack this veryveryvery awesome post. :)

-
Jenna
Stop, Drop and Blog
Birth/First Parent Blog
The Chronicles of Munchkin Land

Submitted by JennaHatfield on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 12:42
 

On the Local Level

I get most of my local news from blogs. Why? Because they are reporting about things that matter to me on a local level in a much more useful way than my local news stations. Teasers about "Dangerous rampage in your 'hood, story at 11" are neither responsible or useful and I don't care about a cat up a tree three states over. Our local Seattle blogs offer stuff that's up to date, valuable, and often WAY more interesting than anything I'm getting from the old school sources. Micro blogs tell me what's happening right THERE, stuff that matters to ME.

Or, what Jenna said. If they'd step up, I'd follow them.

Nerd's Eye View

Submitted by Pam on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 11:48
 

I suffered through this attitude in 1999
already.

In 1999, I worked for a company trying to put trade magazine content online. Everyone was furious that online "writers" would attempt to touch their darling print material. That online writer criticized was me. Still writing online, almost 9 years later, still bored by the idea that what I do is less than what they do simply due to the medium on which I print.

Journalism certainly has its own set of rules, but the opinion page is the opinion page and the columns are the columns wherever they are. Embrace it, world - there IS room for everyone.

Great post.

Surrender, Dorothy - When I was your age, we just let them ride in the back window.

Submitted by Rita Arens on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 14:13
 

Defensively threatened

I think print "journalists" feel threatened by the presence and strength of online writers, which is idiotic. I'm waiting for the day when they start treating blogs like news teams treat cell phone cameras - as valid sources of great information!

In the meantime, keep on doing great work ladies!!!
Helene
The Modern Woman's Divorce Guide Blog
http://themodernwomansdivorceguide.com/blog

Submitted by moddivorce on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 16:12