Babelmachine

Bloggers and journalists are not one

Jan 7, 2007 17:12

As a journalist, one of the most jarring news items for me last week was the decision of the Philadelphia Inquirer to lay off 68 to 71 newsroom employees, citing mounting costs and declining circulation and advertising revenue.

By the way, that's the Philadelphia Inquirer, OK, not the leading Philippine broadsheet the Philippine Daily Inquirer, which is the mother company of the site I work for, INQUIRER.net. I just have to make that clear or I might give my print colleagues a heart attack.

Even though I've previously written about the bleak future for print newspapers and urged them to bet their future on online content, seeing mass layoffs like this is still shocking. No one wants people to lose their jobs, and I certainly don't want to see my fellow journalists suffering. Which is why I hope all of us will learn to reinvent ourselves for the Web.

As Erwin Oliva's article for INQUIRER.net's Infotech section pointed out, however, this is a reality that Philippine newspapers will have to face. In fact, it's a challenge that print journalists across Asia and around the world will have to overcome.

On his Cyberbaguioboy blog, Oliva wrote an interesting post about an article and his own thoughts on the impact of New Media and blogging (which I call New New Media) on journalism.

Let me quote from his post:

While some believe the country’s newspapers are quite in a "unique" situation, they all believe the new media--with the Internet and other info devices becoming ubiquitous, will change the way we do journalism. Bloggers have posed a "threat" to mainstream journalism. However, as we will find out soon, bloggers/journalists are becoming one. Journalism is also becoming multimedia.

Now, while I also believe that journalism is evolving by embracing New Media, I disagree with this statement that "bloggers/journalists are becoming one".

As I've said many times, journalists and bloggers can learn a lot from each other. We can cooperate. We can even be journalists and blog at the same time, as obviously some of us are doing now. But that doesn't mean bloggers and journalists are one. We don't have to be the same. In fact, we may not want to be the same. I think we can recognize and celebrate what makes us different without having to reduce the discussion to a "bloggers vs. journalists" debate.

In the first place, people blog for different reasons. It's not like all bloggers want to cover the news, or share their opinions on the latest issues. Some want to blog to keep in touch with family and friends, some want to showcase their hobbies and other interests, some want to make people laugh, some want to rant, and some just want to goof off because they're bored--and what's wrong with all that? Blogs are powerful tools that allow people to express themselves, including many who have never been given a voice before--in addition to mainstream media. Blogs are tools. We're free to use them as we wish.

Obviously, I appreciate how mainstream media is adapting blogs and other online tools to their needs in order to deliver the news--I've been a staunch advocate of that for years. But I also see the danger of conflating bloggers and journalists, of implying that we're only valuing "serious blogging" and that other forms are frivolous. It's good that we now see more and more journalists, politicians, academicians and other "serious people" blogging, but let's not make the mistake of thinking that others should have the same values as us.

In the same manner, not all bloggers would understand the way the newsroom works, or would be willing to subject themselves to the same rules as journalists. And that's fine. We can use the same tools, but we don't have to be the same.

Which brings us to another point on blogging as a medium--as it becomes more mainstream, it's becoming a commodity, a utility. Think about the Web--back then, it was already a big deal for you to have a Web site. That was already cutting-edge in and of itself. This was even more obvious with some companies which sought an online presence in those early days--it was enough to just upload your page, never mind that the content was awful.

In the not-too-distant future, everyone will blog. Just having a blog won't make you special. Again, it goes back to what you do with it. It's a cliche, but content is king. And when you have a world where everyone is blogging, does that mean all of them are journalists? Or that they would even want to be journalists?

I think the interesting thing we'll see over the next few years is how the values of old institutions will collide with the realities of New Media and New New Media. I'm not saying we should throw away all our old values; I'm just saying we shouldn't be blinded by our own prejudices.

Right now, we're seeing two kinds of responses. One response is apparently Old Media thinking: "Hey, I have these popular columnists or newscasters. I'm sure they'll also be a hit as bloggers."

The other is Old Media taking in more bloggers so as to attract new readers, the idea presumably being that the blogger will know what the new audience wants, and that he will bring along loyal readers of his site who otherwise might never have been interested in the publication.

It will be interesting to see how this situation will play out, and I really don't see just one approach proving to be the right way to go. They might be stopgap measures, but they won't amount to much unless a publication reinvents itself for the Web. Still, I'd like to see media owners actually realizing when their old stars are not the ones best suited for the online world.

For instance, your celebrity may wow people on noontime shows, but your readers on the Web may care more about talented, ordinary people whom YouTube has made stars of. Or that the way you deliver the news on TV (and some of these newscasters are still influenced by the way it's done on radio) may not be the right way to do it on the Web. (On that note, I really miss Amanda Congdon on Rocketboom, sigh.)

Let's respect the Web for what it is, instead of seeing it as a mere extension of Old Media and the old value makers. We live in one world, but it's a world of many beautiful colors.

Note: This post originally appeared in a slightly different version on my personal blog at www.alarilla.com. After my reaction to his post, Oliva added a note on his blog entry to clarify that what he meant by "bloggers/journalists becoming one" is that more journalists will blog.

Here's Oliva's note: (A note in reaction to Joey’s quick reply to this blog post: I think I meant that journalists will eventually be blogging. But I do agree with him that bloggers and journalists have different values. And we do have to make a strong distinction.)

Recent Comments

 

Most Discussed

 

Browse Archive