As a blogger and a video reporter I'm constantly confronted with this questions as:
Is Blogging Innovating Journalism? As a Journalist do you blog? Is a blogger a journalist? And is Blogging the future of Journalism?
This however has led to series of research, digging deep to analyze and understand the difference, if there is any between journalism and blogging. And the role it plays in shaping modern journalism.
Journalism plays a vital part in a democratic society. Concepts like blogging and podcasting are presenting new ways of distributing journalism instantly and letting readers interact with the journalistic product.
Innovations are important to society as well. As disruptive as they sometimes may be, innovations provide stability and economic growth in societies. Publishers of traditional media are trying to survive in a new business reality brought about by low-cost distribution through network technologies.
But the traditional publishing business model, with journalism as a value proposition to its readers, is under attack. Will journalism survive? And is blogging a possible remedy?
Reacting to streams of claims from bloggers Jolie O'Dell a writer for VentureBeat in her article said, "I have to apologize on behalf of my entire profession for how you have been treated by a few bloggers, whom I’ll have the tact to not name here. There are bloggers who know and care nothing about real journalism, who see this profession as an opportunity for short-term gain at anyone’s expense, who find no joy in it and who dream only of fame in the now and a lucrative exit thereafter. These people are not journalists; they are self-serving scum. And they’ve royally fucked up how a lot of people see my profession."
According to her it doesn’t really matter what medium you use. You can be a print journalist, a radio journalist, a television journalist, an online journalist — journalism exists in every form of communication. If we were stripped of all media, there would be oral journalism. And as communication continues to evolve to include new forms of media, journalism will evolve along with it.
To her a journalist is not distinguished by the medium of his or her publication.
Although I find her article more of a critic considering the fact that most outstanding journalists and renowned international journalist do blog.
When blogging first became a popular method of content distribution, "Blogging is not Journalism" was likely the most correct view. In today’s blogging atmosphere, where speculation can be erroneously reported as fact, the battle between the old journalism and the new journalism, the wired versus the tired is recurrent. With intense anger directed at bloggers, whom the journalists see as a looming enemy that is trying to corrupt the profession.
Innovation, according to Wikipedia is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society. Innovation refers to the use of a new idea or method.
If civilization brings along with it innovation then journalism is not spared. Journalism 50 years ago was different than it was in the 1700s. The first newspaper was published in Strassburg in 1605 and Journalism 200 years on is gradually shifting from what it used to be with many journalists re-inventing the profession as an instrument of change.
According to Simon Ateba, Senior Correspondent at TheNews Magazine, many African editors who cling to analog ways may soon become irrelevant in the digital era.
According to him, "this is not an African curse that requires a night-long deliverance! It's a factoid! In many newsrooms today, a cornucopia of editors,quite ignorantly, still dismiss Facebook or Twitter as platforms for kids and gossips!Worst, a phalanx of editors still don't know how to use ipad or blackberry gadgets!...
...A horde of others do not know Skype, Flickr or Pinterest! They do not even use Linkedin to connect with like-minded people and journalism groups or discussions! And when they are given blackberry phones, many do not connect them to as many news sources as possible! And as a result, when a story breaks online, they are not aware!" He added.
His argument further emphasize the importance of innovation in journalism.
Although many see blogging as a step along the road to becoming a journalist. With growing trend of enthusiast blogs and bloggers moving up to jobs with much larger news outlets, but the opportunities are endless.
Blogging gives a journalist a platform to communicate his personal opinion/ view to his audience, although only a handful of them actually get paid to do so by their news organizations. With the likes of cnn.com/blog , aljazeera.com/blog and guardian.co.uk/tone/blog on board, the trend is gradually changing.
From an unbiased perspective, you will agree with me that blogging is just a tool, one of many tools particularly suited to journalism because it can help journalists connect and understand their readers better, a tool strong enough to revolutionizing journalism.
Where journalism is a profession blogging is a medium, where a journalist is a trained writer (wordsmith) a blogger can be anyone (doctor, lawyer even a journalist). That means blogging isn’t journalism, but journalists can blog.
With many journalists missing out on a bright future because they can’t imagine a world that is different than the one they know. And the unfortunate reality is that bloggers have taken a flying leap onto a story to get it out there and often times stories without facts and figures.
Is Blogging Innovating Journalism? As a Journalist do you blog? Is a blogger a journalist? And is Blogging the future of Journalism?
This however has led to series of research, digging deep to analyze and understand the difference, if there is any between journalism and blogging. And the role it plays in shaping modern journalism.
Journalism plays a vital part in a democratic society. Concepts like blogging and podcasting are presenting new ways of distributing journalism instantly and letting readers interact with the journalistic product.
Innovations are important to society as well. As disruptive as they sometimes may be, innovations provide stability and economic growth in societies. Publishers of traditional media are trying to survive in a new business reality brought about by low-cost distribution through network technologies.
But the traditional publishing business model, with journalism as a value proposition to its readers, is under attack. Will journalism survive? And is blogging a possible remedy?
Reacting to streams of claims from bloggers Jolie O'Dell a writer for VentureBeat in her article said, "I have to apologize on behalf of my entire profession for how you have been treated by a few bloggers, whom I’ll have the tact to not name here. There are bloggers who know and care nothing about real journalism, who see this profession as an opportunity for short-term gain at anyone’s expense, who find no joy in it and who dream only of fame in the now and a lucrative exit thereafter. These people are not journalists; they are self-serving scum. And they’ve royally fucked up how a lot of people see my profession."
According to her it doesn’t really matter what medium you use. You can be a print journalist, a radio journalist, a television journalist, an online journalist — journalism exists in every form of communication. If we were stripped of all media, there would be oral journalism. And as communication continues to evolve to include new forms of media, journalism will evolve along with it.
To her a journalist is not distinguished by the medium of his or her publication.
Although I find her article more of a critic considering the fact that most outstanding journalists and renowned international journalist do blog.
When blogging first became a popular method of content distribution, "Blogging is not Journalism" was likely the most correct view. In today’s blogging atmosphere, where speculation can be erroneously reported as fact, the battle between the old journalism and the new journalism, the wired versus the tired is recurrent. With intense anger directed at bloggers, whom the journalists see as a looming enemy that is trying to corrupt the profession.
Innovation, according to Wikipedia is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society. Innovation refers to the use of a new idea or method.
If civilization brings along with it innovation then journalism is not spared. Journalism 50 years ago was different than it was in the 1700s. The first newspaper was published in Strassburg in 1605 and Journalism 200 years on is gradually shifting from what it used to be with many journalists re-inventing the profession as an instrument of change.
According to Simon Ateba, Senior Correspondent at TheNews Magazine, many African editors who cling to analog ways may soon become irrelevant in the digital era.
According to him, "this is not an African curse that requires a night-long deliverance! It's a factoid! In many newsrooms today, a cornucopia of editors,quite ignorantly, still dismiss Facebook or Twitter as platforms for kids and gossips!Worst, a phalanx of editors still don't know how to use ipad or blackberry gadgets!...
...A horde of others do not know Skype, Flickr or Pinterest! They do not even use Linkedin to connect with like-minded people and journalism groups or discussions! And when they are given blackberry phones, many do not connect them to as many news sources as possible! And as a result, when a story breaks online, they are not aware!" He added.
His argument further emphasize the importance of innovation in journalism.
Although many see blogging as a step along the road to becoming a journalist. With growing trend of enthusiast blogs and bloggers moving up to jobs with much larger news outlets, but the opportunities are endless.
Blogging gives a journalist a platform to communicate his personal opinion/ view to his audience, although only a handful of them actually get paid to do so by their news organizations. With the likes of cnn.com/blog , aljazeera.com/blog and guardian.co.uk/tone/blog on board, the trend is gradually changing.
From an unbiased perspective, you will agree with me that blogging is just a tool, one of many tools particularly suited to journalism because it can help journalists connect and understand their readers better, a tool strong enough to revolutionizing journalism.
Where journalism is a profession blogging is a medium, where a journalist is a trained writer (wordsmith) a blogger can be anyone (doctor, lawyer even a journalist). That means blogging isn’t journalism, but journalists can blog.
With many journalists missing out on a bright future because they can’t imagine a world that is different than the one they know. And the unfortunate reality is that bloggers have taken a flying leap onto a story to get it out there and often times stories without facts and figures.
Now, what do you think?
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