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Thursday, April 11, 2002

Are Bloggers Journalists?

On the rise of Amateur Journalism and the need for a Blogging Code of Ethics

by John Hiler

Sometimes a blog is just a blog.

But sometimes it's not, and the line between weblogs and journalism begins to blur. Just the other day, I was talking to a "real journalist": a friend of mine who freelances for the Economist and Red Herring. I explained to him what I was doing with Microcontent News, writing articles about weblogs and personal publishing.

Then I made the mistake of referring to what I was doing as an example of "online journalism".

"Wait, how can that be real journalism?" he interrupted. "You're totally biased because you work in the industry. A lot of journalists don't even register with a political party so they can write about politics objectively!" And that was just the beginning of my crimes against journalism: "You don't even have an editor, so none of your articles are even peer-reviewed!"

My friend had a point: real journalists benefit greatly from objectivity and peer-review. But weblogs are powerful for exactly the opposite reasons: they allow opinionated bloggers to post to the web without an editor. Depending on your point of view, this lack of objectivity and peer-review is either weblogs' greatest strength or their greatest weakness.

Nowhere is this conflict more in evidence than in the world of Journalism. As weblogs start to break stories and deliver analysis from industry insiders, they're coming up against many of the same conflicts that Journalists addressed years ago with their famous Code of Ethics. It's a catch-22: if all bloggers followed the Journalism Code of Ethics, their blogs would be objective and edited... but would they still be blogs?

Or put another way: can blogs contribute responsibly to the world of journalism, if they don't follow the Journalism Code of Ethics? And if the Journalism Code of Ethics isn't relevant to weblogs, is there a Blogging Code of Ethics that is? Rest of the article here: Microcontent News.

That journalist is exactly the reason why journalism is held in such low regard by many (most?). Not registering a political preference makes one objective and able to cover political news? Puhleeze. Give me a break; despite not registering as democratic socialists, most journalists are such, by any rational analysis.

"Objective" journalism is a myth propogated by journalists trying to put one over on the marks. This journalist reveals himself as such.

And peer-review? When was the last time the Wash Post or NY Times corrected a blatant falsehood in as prominent a place as the falsehood was first printed (typically, A section, above the fold for the falsehood, page D27 for the correction).

real journalists benefit greatly from objectivity

Well, there goes that premise. Maybe, people are tired of journalists passing themselves as "objective"---as if failing to register with a political party can make someone "objective". Please.