I’m quoted in an article, Blogging: the new journalism?, that went up today in DotJournalism.co.uk, the British equivalent of the Online Journalism Review. It’s instructive, if only for how resistant traditional journalists remain to the blogging phenomenon.
The head of BBCNews.com surprisingly proves himself to be an old-schooler by claiming, “Dissemination of information is great, but how much of it is trustworthy? They (Blogs) are an interesting phenomenon, but I don’t think they will be as talked about in a year’s time.”
Lloyd Shepherd, chief producer for Guardian Unlimited, says that both weblogs and the Drudge Report do not qualify as journalism.
And the author of the article wrongly maintains: “If journalism is by definition the reporting of news in a fair, balanced and accurate way, then blogging is not journalism.”
Recently I wrote that weblogs do indeed sometimes serve as journalism, and that we need to move beyond that simplistic debate to discuss how to incorporate the advantages of blogging into mainstream media.
Because I’m often asked by reporters and students for quotes on the subject of blogging, journalism and new media, I’ll include the entirety of my exchange with DotJournalism correspondent Jody Raynsford here:
To what extent do people now rely on blogging for breaking news stories or unmediated coverage of events? Do you think this differs depending on where you are based, e.g. US, UK, Iran?
Blogging wont replace traditional news reports, but it will supplement and enhance them. Readers are flocking to online news sites by the millions for the latest news about the war in Iraq. But the story doesnt end there. They are also teeming to weblogs for skeptical analysis, critical commentary, alternative perspectives rarely seen in mainstream media, the views of foreigners, and the occasional first-person account. A handful of reporters in the Gulf region are maintaining weblogs to provide fuller, more personal and colorful reporting of what they are witnessing first-hand.
Certainly, locale plays an important role. But weblogs help to break down those traditional national, regional and institutional barriers. More than 10,000 Iranians and Persian-speaking people now maintain weblogs, a number that is increasing by 200 every day. I wrote about them here.
How can bloggers overcome the arguments regarding journalistic standards of fairness, balance and most importantly accuracy? When does breaking stories first become more important than verifying the truth of these stories before publication on the web?
Journalists arent the only ones who know how to speak the truth. Bloggers are increasingly engaging in random acts of journalism whenever they report on events they witness first-hand or when they offer analysis, background or commentary to a newsworthy topic. Those who publish rumor and present it as fact will be burned fairly quickly. Individuals build up brands and track records just as media organizations do. Not all bloggers go the extra mile, but many are now taking the extra step of trying to verify a report by sending an email, picking up the phone or checking with a hoax site before publishing a report that may or may not be true.
For those who dont bother to check their facts, reputation filters and circles of trust in the blogosphere help weed out the nonsense. We all need to do a better job of fine-tuning our bull meters. But as journalist-blogger Ken Layne once said of the blogging masses, We can fact-check your ass.
What do you think the legal implications may be, in terms of libel and slander, if blogging takes off as a serious news source? For example, what if the allegations made couldn’t then be substantiated?
Im hopeful that many more news organizations hop on board the blog bandwagon. Libel and slander laws should apply in cyberspace just as they do in print and broadcast. Some bloggers will learn the hard way that the Internet is no shield to scurrilous accusations. I just dont happen to frequent any weblogs that play that game.
One of the things you have said about blogging is how much you enjoy the interactivity with readers while writing an article. Just being the devil’s advocate but is the beauty of journalism not based on the information you provide, but on the writer’s individual take on the facts or situation? By heavily involving the readers are you not denying them the opportunity of your individual and fresh take on a subject?
Not at all. Interactivity doesnt take away anything from the writer, it just adds to the richness of the journalism process. A writer, if he or she is to be relevant in cyberspace, cant simply file a story and be done with it forever. Readers want to be involved in a dialogue about the writers findings. They want to probe, question, challenge conclusions, toss out compliments, offer suggestions for missed avenues of exploration. Ive heard from hundreds of writers who say the interaction with readers is the most rewarding part of their jobs. That interaction becomes even richer in the blogosphere.
What do you see as the future for weblogs, particularly those set up by the print media with an online presence?
I believe the opportunities are enormous. The vast majority of media companies have missed the boat so far, and readers are turning to expert amateurs, people with a deep knowledge about a niche subject, and others with a flair for writing or interesting stories to tell hundreds of thousands of bloggers who have become part of the media ecosystem. If the news media choose to ignore it, theyll continue to lose a chance to connect with readers on an intimate daily basis. And theyll become a bit less relevant with each passing day.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
Thank you for the comments, JD.
However, I do not think you are being particularly fair in your perceptions of the reaction to blogging of the traditional media outlets, like Guardian Unlimited.
The sentence of mine you have quoted is taken out of the context of a feature which clearly argues that blogging IS journalism. The mantra that news journalism should be ‘fair, balanced and accurate’ is a by-product of outdated formal journalism training. I think you will find that more than a few trainee journalists often come away from post-graduate diplomas and accredited courses feeling dissatisfied with this.
The proposition was simply that according to the rules of formal journalism training, news reportage by necessity has to be ‘fair, balanced and accurate’ to qualify as journalism. The need to be objective, neutral and detached is preached as if there were no alternative. Yet we know that this is not true – journalists such as John Pilger have broken these rules by speaking out and removing such detachment, and no-one questions that it is not journalism. Our old definitions no longer apply but we have not sought to change them.
The heart of the issue is how journalism is defined. It is very easy to write off the ‘old media’ as resistant and unwilling to embrace weblogs, but it is misunderstanding the issue to do so. In the same article Lloyd Shepherd spoke of about how Guardian Unlimited were tussling with how to incorporate blogging into their site – the very thing you accuse the ‘old media’ of not doing.
Journalists are not good at analysing their own profession. There are no journalism strategists. The debate about what is and is not journalism is not simplistic. Far from it, it is necessary. For I believe if there was serious debate on the issue – rather than polarised views of the out-of-touch ‘old media’ and the revolutionary ‘new media’ – there would be greater understanding of bloggers by the mainstream media and THEN the advantages of incorporating blogging into the mainstream will become apparent.
I am not a traditional journalist, yet in the absence of either my own blog (or an editorship) this remains my own right of reply.
All the best,
Jody
The genesis of MetaJournalism.com.
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