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The blurred lines between blogging and journalism
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Image courtesy of Jorge Quinteros
I have been thinking a lot lately about the roles of bloggers and journalists and how they can often become blurred. Both with bloggers that end up writing for publishers (Pete Cashmore now writes a weekly column for CNN) and the journalists that maintain personal blogs. Then I happened across this interesting article that outlines a new project by the Guardian newspaper, who have created a whole new hybrid – Beat Bloggers.
The hybrid
The Guardian project is interesting because it’s created a whole new type of journalism, that essentially maintains the style of blogging. The beat bloggers are placed in 3 cities – Cardiff, Leeds and Edinburgh. It’s an exciting project that attracted a large amount of applications and online buzz. By reaching out to bloggers in their local cities, the Guardian has given itself access to a powerful news source and it’s encouraging that they have actually gone out and titled these writers as ‘bloggers’ and not just employed them as a columnist. They’ve given a mainstream outlet to bloggers, but can they still really be called bloggers in their Guardian roles? In reality there is nothing that would differentiate their articles from others on the site, but maybe it doesn’t matter.
The lines are increasingly blurring between blogging and journalism. Not only in the fact that many bloggers now contribute to, or work full time in, traditional publications, but also in how blogs now present themselves. Major tech blogs such as The Next Web have had facelifts that give them the appearance more of an online newspaper than a blog. The widget system splits news up into separate sections and takes it away from the interface of a blog that we’re familiar with. Indeed, many people are reading blogs now and they don’t even realise it.
Image courtesy of just.Luc
What makes someone a blogger and not a journalist? Is the only differentiator we have left whether or not the site also has a printed publication? That’s easy to understand, black and white, printed words. But in reality it’s not that simple. Techcrunch describes itself as a weblog, but it has editors, contributors and authors. Why aren’t these contributors calling themselves journalists, or when do they start to? The style in these huge collaborative blogs may be more personalised than you would find in a traditional publication, but ultimately just as informed, just as reliable and just as quick to break the news. Where’s the tipping point?
The fact is that while it’s getting increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the two, the war still rages. Many bloggers see journalists as behind the times and scared of the power of blogging, and many journalists have often been fairly vocal of their views of bloggers as lacking credibility and ethics. Neither, of course, is right. The fact that the two practices are moving closer together might explain the discomfort that’s often felt. Many bloggers now contribute to major publications and a lot of journalists maintain personal blogs, for example Jemima Kiss. The dictionary definitions aren’t going to cut it any more. There aren’t many bloggers who would describe their site as a shared online journal. It’s become more than that. And the idea that journalists write for a mass market won’t do us much good either, if you look at The Huffington Post, which reaches over 12.5 million unique visitors, yet calls itself a blog.
We are all publishers
The answer may lie in the assertion by Tom Foremski, formerly a journalist for the financial times, that social media is actually about publishing. We are all content creators when we upload a photo, record a video or write a blog post. This could herald the way towards a new line of thinking, and an ultimately refreshing one. It’s not about whether you are a journalist or a blogger, the title doesn’t matter. It is actually about the quality of the content you are producing and sharing. It’s the substance that matters, not the title of the person that wrote it. And if they’re getting paid for what they write as well – then good on them for making a living out of it.
In 10 years time it will be interesting to see if we still use the term ‘blogger’ as we do today, or if it will no longer be relevant. Or there may well be some third level, where you are not quite a blogger but not a journalist either. Who knows? Maybe we will all just be publishers, or writers. A more non-descript term that puts us on an equal footing whether we’re reaching 10 people a day or 10,000.
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The NUJ (National Union of Journalists for UK and Ireland) sets out the responsibilities of a journalist – http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=174
Would it not be safe to say that if you follow these points, whether you write for an online or offline publication, or whether you get paid or not, then you are a journalist?
Interesting – and looking at the points I’d say that most bloggers (or the ones I know!) would adhere to these. I think it’s coming down to semantics, and personal interpretation. If Mike Arrington for example called himself a journalist or a blogger, neither would surprise me or seem odd.
The thing I just kept thinking as I wrote the post was that it matters less and less, when the 2 are moving so close together. Is it just a matter of terminology, or does it go deeper than that?
For me, I’m a blogger rather than a journalist. Although what the two do are extremely similar, I won’t consider myself a journalist until someone gets around to paying me for what I do.
Payment is obviously a key criteria! But not sure if it’s enough of a differentiator in itself. Things obviously get tricky when payment comes into it from bloggers – where the money has come from, full disclosure etc. and it’s an interesting point.
Not sure it’s semantics, and I’d also say payment has nothing to do with it. If people are using the wrong words to describe what they are doing then it’s bad English in my opinion. Oxford describes a Blog (Weblog) as “a personal website on which an individual records opinions, links to other sites, etc. on a regular basis” and a journalist as “a person who writes for newspapers or magazines or prepares news to be broadcast on radio or television”. Now I accept that the definition of a journalist should be expanded to include any broadcast medium, but I believe the defining point is ‘news’. As a blogger I do not report the news. I may write a commentary on current affairs etc. but that doesn’t make me a journalist. Consider the widely accept term ‘columnist’. I suggest that columnist and blogger are inter-changeable but not journalist.
I think that the question of editorial authority is central to this discussion.
Journalists work within a stringent body of legal constraints.
Bloggers tend to have more freedom in what they write and many blogs are closer to literature than to journalism.
I am particularly interested in the tensions between employed journalists and citizen bloggers who seem to be gathering many followers on the Internet.
A really thought provoking post. Thank you for sharing.
I would have to agree only up to a point – then it starts to get down to the type of blog. Some are much more focused on news (or discusssion of) whereas some are completely the opposite and would read almost like a diary. Different purposes mean different writing styles, but any blogger worth their salt would also be aware of legal constraints.
You’re dead on about the tension and that’s something I’ve noticed through feedback even on this post alone. It reflects, I think, a change in journalism and that will only become more apparent in the coming months and years. Thank you for your comment!
I think there is decent line in terms of a content standpoint. Journalists are payed to deliver an overview of an event based upon on details not a personal context, they are payed on the ongoing quality of their work. A blogger I think is more opinion based usually driven by a passion for a subject.
I found it really interesting that out of the 244 Irish bloggers I surveyed last year for my research a massive 52% said that they consider their blogging as a form of journalism (and over 58% of them use their real name online). The lines are definitely becoming blurred.
This discussion looks set to run for years.
Bloggers have had a difficult time showing that what they write is of value to the
public and the idea of shared intellectual capital is relatively new in Ireland.
The question of using one’s real name interests me a lot.
The paranoia that insisted one use avatars and “nom de plumes” in chat rooms
is largely gone now, I think. People are proud to present their true identities
on Twitter and studying who follows whom is almost a social hobby.
When I started blogging, a high-profile American blogger had been sent death threats, ensuring that she literally locked herself into her home. This added to a sense of insecurity in the blogging community.
However this is now history.
While the lines may be blurred between journalism and blogging in the eyes of some bloggers,
the two activities are very different, or so personal experience shows me.
Mornings in a newspaper office are usually spent calming nerves and apologising.
So far, nobody has asked for any apologies, no matter what I write in my blog.