PressThink: Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over

Highlighted by dcalvosa

Typically, the debate about blogs today is framed as a duel to the death between old and new journalism. Many bloggers see themselves as a Web-borne vanguard, striking blows for truth-telling authenticity against the media-monopoly empire. Many newsroom journalists see bloggers as wannabe amateurs badly in need of some skills and some editors.

This debate is stupidly reductive — an inevitable byproduct of (I’ll don my blogger-sympathizer hat here) the traditional media’s insistent habit of framing all change in terms of a "who wins and who loses?" calculus. The rise of blogs does not equal the death of professional journalism. The media world is not a zero-sum game. Increasingly, in fact, the Internet is turning it into a symbiotic ecosystem — in which the different parts feed off one another and the whole thing grows.

Highlighted by dcalvosa

In an earlier essay, Blood showed how difficult it was to identify journalism exclusively with journalists. If we focus on practices that meet a certain standard, she said, then it is easy to tell who is who:

When a blogger writes up daily accounts of an international conference, as David Steven did at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, that is journalism. When a magazine reporter repurposes a press release without checking facts or talking to additional sources, that is not. When a blogger interviews an author about their new book, that is journalism. When an opinion columnist manipulates facts in order to create a false impression, that is not. When a blogger searches the existing record of fact and discovers that a public figure’s claim is untrue, that is journalism. When a reporter repeats a politician’s assertions without verifying whether they are true, that is not.

Highlighted by dcalvosa

The price of professionalizing journalism was the de-voicing of the journalist. The price for having mass media was the atomization of the audience, who in the broadcasting model were connected "up" to the center but not "across" to each other. Well, blogging is a re-voicing tool in journalism, and the Net’s strengths in horizontal communication mean that audience atomization is being overcome.

Highlighted by dcalvosa

Writing about the Iraq war in his blogger’s manifesto (2002), Andrew Sullivan explains the advantages of the stand alone style in blogging:

The blog almost seemed designed for this moment. In an instant, during the crisis, the market for serious news commentary soared. But people were not just hungry for news, I realized. They were hungry for communication, for checking their gut against someone they had come to know, for emotional support and psychological bonding. In this world, the very personal nature of blogs had far more resonance than more impersonal corporate media products. Readers were more skeptical of anonymous news organizations anyway, and preferred to supplement them with individual writers they knew and liked.

It’s not all about providing good information. Responding when people are "hungry for communication" also builds trust online. In certain ways, which we have yet to learn much about, the stand alone journalist may be easier to trust than a corporate provider.

Highlighted by dcalvosa

Here is one advantage bloggers have in the struggle for reputation— for the user’s trust. They are closer to the transaction where trust gets built up on the Web. There’s a big difference between tapping a built-up asset, like the St. Pete Times "brand," and creating it from scratch. Bloggers are "building their reputations from the ground up," as Hiler said, and to do this they have to focus on users. They have to be in dialogue. They have to point to others and say: listen to him! The connection between what they do and whether they are trusted is much alive and apparent. In journalism that connection has been harder to find lately. Journalists don’t know much about it. They do know their rules, though.

Highlighted by dcalvosa

“For vivid reporting from the enormous zone of tsunami disaster, it was hard to beat the blogs.”

Highlighted by olifante

The question now isn’t whether blogs can be journalism. They can be, sometimes. It isn’t whether bloggers “are” journalists. They apparently are, sometimes.

Highlighted by olifante

I have been an observer and critic of the American press for 19 years. In that stretch there has never been a time so unsettled. More is up for grabs than has ever been up for grabs since I started my watch.

Highlighted by olifante

this is an exciting time in journalism. Part of the reason is the extension of “the press” to the people we have traditionally called the public.

Highlighted by olifante

Bush to Press: "You're Assuming That You Represent the Public. I Don't Accept That." "Bush and his advisors have their own press think, which they are trying out as policy. Reporters do not represent the interests of a broader public. They aren't a pipeline to the people, because people see through the game of Gotcha. The press has forfeited, if it ever had, its quasi-official role in the checks and balances of government."

Highlighted by tonycurzonprice

They all sense it, what Tom Curley, the man who runs the Associated Press, called “a huge shift in the ‘balance of power’ in our world, from the content providers to the content consumers.”

Highlighted by olifante

professional journalism is no longer sovereign over territory it once easily controlled.

Highlighted by olifante

“The Roman Empire that was mass media is breaking up, and we are entering an almost-feudal period where there will be many more centers of power and influence.”

Highlighted by olifante

When Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and a figure in the news, wants to speak to fans, players or the community, he doesn’t do it through the reporters who cover the Mavs. He puts the word out at his weblog. For the beat writers who cover the team this is a loss; Cuban hardly deals with them anymore.

Highlighted by olifante

This was the year when it finally became unmistakably clear that objectivity has outlived its usefulness as an ethical touchstone for journalism. The way it is currently construed, “objectivity” makes the media easily manipulable by an executive branch intent on and adept at controlling the message. It produces a rigid orthodoxy, excluding voices beyond the narrowly conventional.

Highlighted by mguhlin

professional journalism has entered a period of declining sovereignty in news, politics and the provision of facts to public debate

Highlighted by olifante

the old political contract between news providers and news consumers will give way to something different, founded on what Curley correctly called a new “balance of power.”

Highlighted by olifante

“Journalism finds itself at a rare moment in history where … its hegemony as gatekeeper of the news is threatened by not just new technology and competitors but, potentially, by the audience it serves.”

Highlighted by olifante

objectivity has outlived its usefulness as an ethical touchstone for journalism. The way it is currently construed, “objectivity” makes the media easily manipulable by an executive branch intent on and adept at controlling the message. It produces a rigid orthodoxy, excluding voices beyond the narrowly conventional.

Highlighted by olifante

Typically, the debate about blogs today is framed as a duel to the death between old and new journalism. Many bloggers see themselves as a Web-borne vanguard, striking blows for truth-telling authenticity against the media-monopoly empire. Many newsroom journalists see bloggers as wannabe amateurs badly in need of some skills and some editors.

Highlighted by mguhlin

The rise of blogs does not equal the death of professional journalism. The media world is not a zero-sum game. Increasingly, in fact, the Internet is turning it into a symbiotic ecosystem — in which the different parts feed off one another and the whole thing grows.

Highlighted by mguhlin

no desire to conform my weblog to journalistic standards, or to remake journalism in my image. I want to find ways to leverage the strengths of both worlds to the mutual benefit of both

Highlighted by mguhlin

When a blogger writes up daily accounts of an international conference

Highlighted by mguhlin

hat is journalism

Highlighted by mguhlin

that is journalism.

Highlighted by mguhlin

that is journalism.

Highlighted by mguhlin

Distributed journalism. Open Source journalism. Citizens media. Citizen journalism. We media. Participatory media. Participatory journalism. These are the new names for the discussion that first grew up around blogging.

Highlighted by olifante

Typically, the debate about blogs today is framed as a duel to the death between old and new journalism. Many bloggers see themselves as a Web-borne vanguard, striking blows for truth-telling authenticity against the media-monopoly empire. Many newsroom journalists see bloggers as wannabe amateurs badly in need of some skills and some editors.

This debate is stupidly reductive — an inevitable byproduct of (I’ll don my blogger-sympathizer hat here) the traditional media’s insistent habit of framing all change in terms of a “who wins and who loses?” calculus. The rise of blogs does not equal the death of professional journalism. The media world is not a zero-sum game. Increasingly, in fact, the Internet is turning it into a symbiotic ecosystem

Highlighted by olifante

When a blogger writes up daily accounts of an international conference, as David Steven did at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, that is journalism. When a magazine reporter repurposes a press release without checking facts or talking to additional sources, that is not. When a blogger interviews an author about their new book, that is journalism. When an opinion columnist manipulates facts in order to create a false impression, that is not. When a blogger searches the existing record of fact and discovers that a public figure’s claim is untrue, that is journalism. When a reporter repeats a politician’s assertions without verifying whether they are true, that is not.

Highlighted by olifante

Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one, and blogging means practically anyone can own one. That is the Number One reason why weblogs matter.

Highlighted by olifante

there’s always going to be tension between bloggers and Big Journalism. It’s in the DNA.

Highlighted by olifante

This is the number one asset of the news organization: stored trust, reputational capital. Any competent journalist knows how to benefit from that: your calls get returned… like magic!

Highlighted by olifante

We start telling students in graduate school they won’t “have” credibility unless they meet professional standards and obey the rules, but this tends to be interpreted as: “if we obey the rules of journalism, and meet the standards of our peers, then we have credibility.” And that is not true. (Your peers may have the wrong standards.)

Highlighted by olifante

Here is one advantage bloggers have in the struggle for reputation— for the user’s trust. They are closer to the transaction where trust gets built up on the Web.

Highlighted by olifante

in the last two decades a new breed of amateur has emerged: the Pro-Am, amateurs who work to professional standards.

Highlighted by olifante

The twentieth century was shaped by large hierarchical organisations with professionals at the top. Pro-Ams are creating new, distributed organisational models that will be innovative, adaptive and low-cost.

Highlighted by olifante

online a filter becomes more intelligent by people interacting with it. To judge significance, it helps to be in conversation with the people you are sifting things for. One might propose: over time a blog teaches a journalist how to become an intelligent filter by forcing interaction with the Web and its users. If the traditional press expects to survive on its filtering skills, and to be authoritative, it will have to devise a way of interacting more with the filterees.

Highlighted by olifante

arguing about whether blogs would replace the major news media is like asking “will farmers’ markets replace restaurants?”

Highlighted by olifante

The price of professionalizing journalism was the de-voicing of the journalist. The price for having mass media was the atomization of the audience, who in the broadcasting model were connected “up” to the center but not “across” to each other. Well, blogging is a re-voicing tool in journalism, and the Net’s strengths in horizontal communication mean that audience atomization is being overcome.

Highlighted by olifante

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