New Communication Technologies Essay: Are Bloggers Journalists?

New Communication Technologies: Essay 1: Are Bloggers Journalists?

News gathering and reporting has often been the work of journalists. It was often seen, that the only way of the public gathering information, news or entertainment, was through what journalists had written and displayed in their work. However, in modern days with the emergence of the blog on the internet, there is a new era in the ways of gathering information and reporting news. No longer do news consumers, only search papers, magazines or television for news, they are able to go online and view blogs of niche news markets and have click of the button, up-to-date news. However, the question remains, are those bloggers, who create these blogs, journalists? This debate has separated journalists and bloggers alike, yet the winner, ultimately remains the news consumer.

A journalist is defined as an “intermediary between the people who want to know information and the sources of information…at the same time, the journalist is a filter of information” (Cave in Tapsall 2001, p.6). Through this it is quite clear that the role of deciphering what information the public has, and how much information they receive belongs to the journalist. The ways in which news and information was brought to the public was always through a journalist. In the modern day and age, quite clearly news and information can be received, consumed, and written in the form of blogs. The bloggers who write these blogs, can often be seen as becoming new mediums of information, and thus play “an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, sorting, analysing and disseminating news and information- a task once reserved almost entirely to the news media” (Lasica 2003, p.71). Considering the roles these bloggers play, it is clear that bloggers can be seen as journalists.

A major deciphering point as to whether bloggers are journalists or not, considers that when consuming news through journalistic media forms such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines, the consumer has become aware of the what can be seen as hard hitting news, and what can be seen as human interest comment news. However, in the age of the blogger, and blogging it is very hard to “know which of them [blogs] is a news site, which is a personal forum or one that does serious investigation or one that’s presenting junk evidence”(Pain 2005, p.4). According to Pain, what is written, by bloggers on blogs, can be seen as a more wide spread adaptation of consuming news, which leads to poorer quality, greater risk of being incorrect, and a tougher ability in deciphering fact from fiction. Through this, there is an indication that bloggers are not journalists.

However, according to Axel Bruns’ ‘Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production’, there is the idea that, “the mainstream ‘industrial’ journalism is outdated, a dinosaur that needs to reinvent itself in order to remain relevant to a new, more engaged, citizenry” (Bruns 2005). As the ‘industrial’ journalist is now seen as outdated, there is the notion that bloggers are the ‘reinvention’ of journalists, and have become ‘produsers’, those people who not only use news but also produce it. Overall, through examining that the citizenry has changed from a “mass, passive audience, consisting of people who are readers and receivers of packaged news-mere consumers of information- into smaller communities of actively involved users and producers of news content…” (Milberry 2006), it is quite clear that the audience has become more involved in news and information through blogs, which can lead to bloggers being considered as journalists.

Journalism and journalists have developed quite significantly since the days of the ‘penny press’, and have since risen to objective reporting, which reports only on facts and can inextricably omit bias. This rise to objective reporting has required journalists to “distinguish ‘facts’ from ‘values’ in order to be considered a free arbiter of truth” (Allen 1999, p.25). In comparison a majority of “bloggers value informal conversation, egalitarianism, subjective points of view, and colourful writing, over profits, objectivity and filtered prose” (Lasica 2003, p.71). Blogs are mainly written subjectively and often have a great amount of bias and feeling throughout. Considering that the writing styles and prose of the journalist differ dramatically from the blogger, it is evident that a blogger cannot be seen as a journalist.

In light of many recent terrorist attacks (9/11), natural disasters (the boxing day Tsunami), and conflicts (the War in Iraq), there has been a greater public awareness and craving of information, news and opinion. With this, the public and citizenry have changed, and now seek new forms of information. No longer were news consumers seeking normal journalistic practices. Emotion, attachment and feeling to the news were now needed. This is where blogging became part of a new form of journalism, as “bloggers were unhindered by the normal journalistic standards of objectivity, balance and accuracy. This amateur output was raw, subjective and honest as people sought emotions, not detachment - finding solace and expression in the words of the thousands of blogs that sprang up” (Raynsford 2003). Considering that news consumers were now concerned with the raw emotion in the news blogs presented, it is clear that bloggers can be seen as journalists.

Finally, most journalists have “a realist view of the world and an empirical methodology, which has been developed over many years of study and practice” (Windschuttle 1995). In comparison however, bloggers generally “focus on narrow subject matter of interest to a select but circumscribed niche (Andrews 2003, p.63). Considering, that journalists have many years of training, and that their news is constantly subjected to checking and re-checking, as opposed to bloggers, whose news is usually written very colloquial, subjective, and personal with limited knowledge and experience in news gathering and reporting, it is quite clear that bloggers cannot be journalists.

When a journalist is asked whether a blogger can be described as a journalist the result usually ends with a clear gasp and howls of mockery, and when you ask a blogger do they consider themselves’ journalists, the answer is usually no. However, when considering whether journalism and blogging are intertwined, it is quite clear that there is a greater amount of news, so ultimately the news consumer is the winner. However, when looking for an answer to whether bloggers are journalists, consider Herbert Gans’ “the news may be to important to leave to the journalists alone” (Gans 1980, p.322).







References:

Allan, Stuart (1999), News Culture. Buckingham: Open University Press. Chapter 1 pp. 7-26

Andrews, Paul (2003), ‘Is Blogging Journalism?’ http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/03-3NRfall/63-64V57N3.pdf

Bruns, Axel (2005), ‘Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production’. New York: Peter Lang.

Cave, Peter in Tapsall, Suellen & Carolyn Varley (2001), ‘What is a journalist?’ in Suellen Tapsall & Carolyn Varley (eds), Journalism theory in Practice. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Pp. 3-20

Gans, Herbert (1980), ‘Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek and Time’. New York: Vintage.

Lasica, J.D. (2003), ‘Blogs and Journalism Need Each Other’. http://nieman.harvard.edu/reports/03-3NRfall/70-74V57N3.pdf

Milberry, Kate (2006), ‘Canadian Journal of Communication’ Vol 31, No 3 (2006) http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1740/1851

Pain, Julian (2005), ‘Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber Dissidents’. France: Reporters Without Bodies.

Raynsford, Jody (2003), ‘Blogging: the new journalism?’ http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/5604.php

Windschuttle, Keith (1995), ‘The Poverty of Media Theory’. http://www.sydneyline.com/Poverty%20of%20Media%20Theory.htm