A professional journalist working for a professional media source such as a newspaper, TV station, magazine or radio goes through an editing process in which several other pairs of eyes review the material, checking accuracy, fairness, coherence, and balance, something that bloggers do not have to go through. Bloggers can insert themselves and their opinion freely throughout their presentation of facts. In some ways, this is a positive development in journalism because its finally admitting that journalists are humans with opinions too, but its dangerous too because bloggers are good at presenting their opinions as facts, which is why scandals get blown out of proportion and people believe them even after they're proven false. But reading the correction isn't as juicy as reading the first-day's story or the most recent blog.
I was chatting with a photographer at the Emerald about the question of what is a journalist and to whom should the Shield Laws apply. He brought up a good point: just because something is in print doesn't necessarily make the publication journalism. Example: journals of news/opinion like our campus publications, The Commentator and The Insurgent. The Insurgent link is a bit old, but the most recent on the Web.
Technically, these two publications provide news, from a certain perspective, and call themselves journalist's and are part of the campus media. If they were to publish an investigative piece that blew open a huge controversy, surely they would be called on to reveal their sources. I wonder, would the shield laws protect them? I think that media that should be protected under the shield laws are ones where the journalists undergo a thorough editing process in which both the journalist and editors are all working under the same ethics, as defined by the various journalism societies like Society of Professional Journalists, etc. As much as the public may not believe that journalists are actually trying to help society, there are many who are, who work according to a set of ethics and standards that hold objectivity, truth, fairness, balance and accuracy as the tenets of journalism. To live up to these tenets, they go through processes while reporting, writing and editing to ensure that the story presented is one that most accurately reflects what happened or is happening. I don't think bloggers abide by those same standards.
I think bloggers and journalists are different, fundamentally. Bloggers are an opportunity to tell a news story from the perspective of someone involved. I don't think they should try to be journalists in the same way that professional journalists are. I think bloggers should play up their strengths: immediacy, opinion, reflection, subjectivity. By blurring the line too much between these two worlds, we're only going to decrease both's validity.
2 comments:
I question how often, and in what memorable instances (cited), the line between a journalist and blogger has been skewed. Susan, you state that "its (sic) dangerous too because bloggers are good at presenting their opinions as facts." I read blogs frequently, and rarely do I find authors masking themselve as reporters. My observation is that blogs are not reports. As you said, they are often opinion/commentary pieces or journals. The Commentator and The Insurgent, as far as I know, have never been tried for providing false information. This would be ridiculous because the former, for example, writes monthly updates on Sudsy, the OC mascot. They look like reports and they take on the journalistic style of a traditional article, but we all know that they are not fact. If The Oregonian wrote such an update within the regular news pages, there would be a problem.
I need to know if people have been misguided due to information taken from blogs before I can stand firm behind the proceeding statements, but I'll get them out there anyway: blogs are not read for updates on world events; blogs are not considered factual sources; and blogs are not masked as such. I don't think bloggers should strive to become journalists, I think journalists should create blogs. As long as they're attached to a professional Web site, the credibility of a post isn't questioned. But these professoinal sites must comply with industry standards to earn the (dwindling) respect of readers as a legitimate source. If people are being skewed by information on blogs, and are using them as factual sources, perhaps a course in media literacy is in order.
I would counter-argue nicholas that Kevin Sites, a CNN correspondent, is more well-known for his blogging/journalist coverage of wars, and I would also point out the furor over The Drudge Report's rumors regarding John Kerry's alleged affair with an intern as two examples of how people take confuse the line between blogging and journalism.
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