Are bloggers journalists? God, what a stupid question.
I’m getting really tired of this debate. Are bloggers journalists? Isn’t that kind of like asking, Is a car a murder weapon? Are all priests pedophiles? Are all journalists vapid jagoffs?
Are bloggers journalists? The answer is, of course, “It depends.” Some bloggers are journalists because some journalists blog. But having a blog doesn’t make you a journalist, any more than owning a gun makes you a murderer. A blog is a type of web page, usually enabled by a particular type of software which allows you to post anything you want, from pictures to links to incoherent rants to real reporting. A blog is what you make it, and whether a blogger is a journalist depends on the substance of the content, not the form it takes.
Of course, it’s easy to see how those in the media could have lost sight of this fact over the years. The media have built themselves a nice little bubble house, inside which they can tell themselves that anything they do is fascinating and interesting and worthwhile. Anything they do is news, they seem to think, because it’s presented as if it were news. Adopt a certain tone of voice or style of writing and you can make the most trival drivel appear to be Serious Stuff. But 95% of it is a pile of crap with an expensive haircut.
The real question ought to be, Are journalists journalists? Are you a journalist just because you’re on television? Are you a journalist just because you get published? Is that all it takes, or is there more to it?
Saturday, April 9th, 2005 @ 12:52 am 
Blogging Matters, Truth Matters
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April 12th, 2005 at 11:17 am
Good to see you’re posting regularly again – you missed it and so did I. Good 4 U on the interim job, too. I spent my entire working life with creative folks doing what I wanted to do – nothing beats that (except perhaps the fact that I was also well paid!!).