An hour ago
WebPro Blog posted an article entitled “The newspaper needs bloggers”. This story was the fourth to appear on my Google news search on the subject, so far it has no ‘diggs’ or comments but it has only been sixty minutes since it was penned by an unidentified someone in cyberspace. The piece romanticises the image of an everyman blogger as “people whose passion comes before getting a degree in journalism”. This blog post is spawn of an
LA Times article, thus this piece partially inspired by that. The premise of the original
LAT copy is that newspapers are now forming relationships with the blogging world to work in harmony rather than opposition, therefore the threat posed to professional journalism by the blogger is eliminated.
If you should wish to know how the weather was in New York today you may check the forecast, read the
New York Times online, and now you may also find the online diary of
Brett Thom, a New York food critic, who happened to explain today “there’s something comforting in talking about the weather". The danger to journalists is that Brett will tell you about the rain and sun of New York city in an inconsequential colloquial whimsy that has no place in professional print but finds an audience online. And if his words just aren't enough you might even find a clip on
YouTube. Journalism has become more than informing the masses of issues they were not previously aware.
The
Guardian Unlimited Comment is Free online forum allows anyone to post critique or praise for the professional journalists who earn a career in the field of finding and telling news. The debate they raise is instantly ignited or rejected in an uncontrolled environment by anyone who reads it. News has become open and interactive to all in a way that has never before been possible. Journalists should now be reading blogs and public comment just as much if not more than eachother.
Last year
The Times Online hailed the birth of the 40 millionth blog “giving voice to another person we never knew existed”. It seems that the initial fear that bloggers could threaten the future of professional journalists was overcome by a kind of symbiotic respect and gain. While the piece warns against the power of bloggers it praises the revolutionary and innovative writing that is “changing the face of spot news coverage” by being right at the source as it happens.
Many of these intriguing and ingenious on-the-scene reports are exciting the world but their credibility is being challenged. Guardian writer Seth Finkelstein asks
“Is it easier to believe the bloggers now rather than the journalists?” This question probes at the popular point that in the past many accredited journalists have been guilty of embellishment or even complete fabrication but as faceless uninstitutionalized contributors bloggers appear to have the publics trust. Now anyone can say virtually anything and it is just as likely to top a Google news search as a piece by Patrick Cockburn, a writer of proven integrity. Even
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, has some kind of censorship that disallows blatant untruths but blogs do not.
Unless one is already news savvy it is conceivable to be mesmorised and very mislead by the information and opinions more widely available than any publication. However perhaps it is arguable that the unmonitored entirely free press is now available to balance a controlled yet invariably biased past of news coverage. A career in journalism does not attest to a person's honesty. Surely there can be no regulation on who is qualified to say what is true.
