Bloggers Sometimes Do Journalism, But Are They Journalists?
http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=E64BFA:2F72C9DThe "blogosphere" gained popularity when bloggers exposed mistakes in
the media's reports during the U.S. presidential campaign During the
early days of the military conflict in Iraq, Americans discovered a
new Internet phenomenon called "blogging." U.S. soldiers stationed in
the Middle East created online Web pages, or "Web logs," to share
their experiences and feelings with readers. This brought attention to
blogging as a form of communication, and people worldwide began Web
logs of their own.
Last year, the "blogosphere," as the world of blogging is called,
gained even more prominence when politically oriented bloggers exposed
several mistakes in the media's reports during the U.S. presidential
campaign. And bloggers' growing role as observers of the political
scene has led to a provocative question: Are they journalists?
John Hiler, who edits a blog called "Microcontent News" that writes
about blogs and the blogosphere, asked that very question a couple of
years ago. Once bloggers go beyond venting their opinions and start
researching and reporting information, do they qualify as "real"
journalists? How can they? Mr. Hiler asked, when they don't have
editors checking their facts, and when they openly harbor biases in
favor of one political viewpoint or another.
Most blogs are highly personal -- either talking about one's life
experiences or sounding off about politics and world events. Bloggers
often link to, and critique, each other as well. Internet users
discover Web logs by chance, or at the recommendation of others. Or
they can browse search engines such as "Feedster" and "Bloglines" that
are specifically geared to blogs.
Bloggers are among the establishment media's most voracious readers
and viewers, and prominent blogs regularly critique the mainstream
media. In turn, the so-called "old media" are embracing new media like
blogs. Many newspapers and television networks have assigned writers
to produce blogs in the name of the paper or network.
Recently the debate about bloggers' qualifications as journalists has
intensified. A discussion at the Heritage Foundation conservative
think tank, for instance, was entitled, "Are bloggers and journalists
friends or enemies?"
Jim Hill, who's the managing editor of the writers' group at the
Washington Post newspaper, told the audience that bloggers are welcome
in what he called "our band of journalistic brothers." He said, "A
journalist can be anyone who takes pen to paper -- how antiquated that
phrase is in this electronic era -- and spreads the news."
Danny Glover blogs about his personal life, such as the adoption of
his children. But he also runs a mainstream online technology site for
the National Journal magazine. In the Heritage Foundation discussion,
Mr. Glover said many journalists have contempt for bloggers -- calling
them "barroom loudmouths," "salivating morons," and "the headless
mob." He, himself, does not go that far. But he agrees that bloggers
are absolutely NOT journalists. "They are intellectual adversaries
engaged in battle on a 21st century information war," he said. "Are
bloggers journalists? And the answer is a resounding 'no.' Bloggers
are not journalists and clearly have no desire to be. They are
grass-roots activists who, if inclined at all to quit their day jobs
and change careers, are more likely to end up in political or policy
circles than journalistic ones."
Danny Glover conceded that bloggers sometimes perform journalistic
tasks such as checking the facts in politicians' statements. In that
role at least, he said, they are important public watchdogs. But he
added, "Just doing journalism doesn't make you a journalist, any more
than doing first aid makes you a doctor -- any more than loaning money
to a friend makes you a banker. Bloggers bring fresh insights,
unyielding passion, and a whole lot of sass to the public sphere, and
they answer to no one but themselves. They are the militiamen of the
information revolution."
One of America's most successful bloggers is Ed Morrissey, whose
conservative blog, called "Captain's Quarters," once crashed under the
weight of 20,000 "hits," or online visits, a day. Bloggers dig for
original information and exchange it with readers, he told the
Heritage Foundation audience. "And that's journalism, no matter what
one calls a person delivering it."
"Captain Ed," as Mr. Morrissey is called in the blogosphere,
acknowledged that bloggers often bring partisan biases to their work,
and that moderate political bloggers are hard to find. But he argued
that mainstream journalists also carry hidden -- or not-so-hidden --
political prejudices.
When bloggers got together last year and debunked a CBS television
report about President Bush's Vietnam War service by exposing key
documents as likely forgeries, Mr. Morrissey says, they were acting as
"citizen journalists" in the best sense of both words. "Bloggers can
move between journalist, pundit, critic, self-promoter, and back
again," he said, "sometimes all within the same day. As our own
editors and publishers, we have the flexibility to do all that as we
see fit. Our impact in all of these roles depends on our level of
trust that we have built with our readers."
Journalism has long been recognized as a viable career and an
honorable profession. A powerful one, too -- so much so that it's
often called the "Fourth Estate" alongside the executive, legislative,
and judicial branches of government. [In pre-revolutionary France, the
three Estates were the nobility, the church, and commoners.]
Bloggers, on the other hand, rarely get paychecks. At best, they're
sometimes called "amateur journalists." Most, like Ed Morrissey, blog
at night, on weekends, or during breaks at work and must rely on
unrelated fulltime jobs to pay the bills.
Blogger Jeff Jarvis once noted on his Web log called the "Buzz
Machine" that journalism is "institutional, impersonal, and
dispassionate." Blogs, he wrote, "are human, personal, and
passionate." Too passionate and opinionated to suit many traditional
journalists, who cling to the American tradition that only those who
write objective news -- and don't interpret it or intersperse their
personal life stories, analysis, or partisan rants -- can legitimately
call themselves journalists.