Are Bloggers Journalists?

As a blogger, why do we feel like we need to have same position with journalist? (Image credit: national.ca)

Nowadays internet is an important media. Internet has become an easy and simple way to search the information. People share and looking for news from the internet and blog has high position on it. On blog, you can create your own diary or journal without write it on a book. You can share your experience, opinion, and new information to other people, which is broader. But the question is, are Bloggers having the same standard with Journalists?

Bloggers

(image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quirkybird)

Blog is A blog (a blend of the term web log) is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blogcan also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Most blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via widgets on the blogs and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog)

So, Blogger is someone who maintained the blog with his/ her regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

Journalist

(image credit: http://www.homepagedaily.com)

A journalist collects and disseminates information about current events, people, trends, and issues. His or her work is acknowledged as journalism.

Reporters are one type of journalist. They create reports as a profession for broadcast or publication in mass media such as newspapers, television, radio, magazines, documentary film, or the Internet. Reporters find sources for their work, their reports can be either spoken or written, and they are often expected to report in the most objective and unbiased way to serve the public good. A columnist is a journalist who writes pieces that appear regularly in newspapers or magazines.

Depending on the context, the term journalist also includes various types of editors and visual journalists, such as photographers, graphic artists, and page designers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalist)

The Differences Between Bloggers and Journalist

From the definition above, you can conclude the differences between Bloggers and Journalist. The differences are:

Bloggers	Journalist
Not paid.	Not only paid, he/she could even go unpaid, it wouldn't make that much of a difference.
No need to train, everyone can be a blogger. A blogger is not doing the interview.	After being properly trained, a journalist has to use criteria to be bound to: conduct an interview the right way.
Sometimes a blogger combine the fact from factoid.	Separate fact from factoid.
Some bloggers tend to write based on his view or feeling without know and searching for the truth.	Know actual news from gossip or trivia or speculation.
A blogger will just write, and using bad grammar/ spelling.	Write properly.
Sometimes just citizen acting like press.	Acknowledged as part of press.
Write because of the hobby, a blogger have not the deadline.	Write not only because of the hobby but also necessity, a journalist has the deadline to write something.

Bloggers = Journalists? 

From the two articles that the lecturer has given and from other article I read, I've concluded some points about bloggers and journalist. According to http://chris.pirillo.com/are-bloggers-journalists-are-blogs-new-journalism/, blogging is certainly a newer type of writing style. Blogging and journalism aren't exactly the same, but they achieve the same results. A blogger should not be held to the same standard as the media. It depends on what your definition of a journalist is, as opposed to a blogger. On the other hand, according to http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc2005037_7877_tc024.htm, some organizations have begun to legitimize Web logs as a valid grassroots form of journalism. In 2004, bloggers for the first time received press passes to cover the conventions during the Presidential elections. They have broken major news stories. Several prominent bloggers have become media pundits. And mainstream media outfits, including BusinessWeek Online, are developing blogs to complement their traditional outlets. (BusinessWeek Online first reported the judge's tentative ruling in this case Mar. 4 on BW blog Tech Beat.). However, blogs have also fast gained a reputation for inaccuracy that threatens to erode their writers' claim to the title of journalist. In traditional media, the same legal rights that allow a journalist to protect sources also hold such writers accountable to report the truth. If journalists stray from what's true, they can be charged with libel.

So, in my opinion Bloggers and Journalists are not the same. Bloggers just write their thought, feeling, opinion of one topic without looking for the fact and they write because of the passion. Of course this is in contrast with journalists that have a responsibility to give actual news. But although bloggers and journalists are not the same, they both need to be treated with respect by companies and other people, because they both play a part in the way people eat information.






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