Journalists have a tendency to assume that bloggers want to be journalists, despite the fact that few bloggers make such a claim. The assumption is that journalism is serious stuff (’first draft of history’, ‘critical for democracy’, ’speaking truth to power’ you know the spiel) and blogging is not.
Of course, this assumption always measures the best of journalism (not those breathless pieces on where to get the best coffee in Melbourne or the best salt and pepper squid in Sydney) against the worst of blogging (’my cat was off his food today’). If only those poor bloggers could be trained to be journalists than perhaps they too might blow open a major scandal. Or perhaps there is more to it than that.
One blogger who definitely doesn’t want to be a journalist is Professor Chad Orzel:
As I’ve said many times before, and will no doubt bore you all by repeating many times in the future, I think that these “blogging guides” and workshops and so on that are predicated on the idea that blogs are a replacement for traditional journalism (or traditional academic publishing, or whatever) are missing the point. If blogs are going to have a transformative effect on society in general, it’s not going to be as a farm team for the New York Times. The real potential for change comes from giving ordinary people to power to put their thoughts, ideas, and, basically, their lives out on the Web for everyone to see.
Orzel is a physics professor and one of the many scientists who can be read on the excellent science blogs site. It is this access to expertise (direct access that is and not as interpreted by some woodchuck reporter in search of an editor-pleasing headline) that ultimately makes blogging more important than journalism. Not mind you a replacement for good reportage but not some pale imitation of it either. On the other hand, and contrary to the way many journos carry on, reporting on something does not make you an expert in that subject.
Richard Laermer at the bad pitch blog has an interesting additional take on the whole problem of the media’s experts versus those that live in the blogosphere pure and simple:
As an imbiber of the Times since my days in small pants, I have to wonder and I need to worry. Are they unaware that blogs exist, or are they hoping we don’t know blogs exist? Or, most interestingly, are they calling their blog “Instant Op-Ed” in order to make their so-called experts seem like more than mere bloggers?
This is problematic because – everyone take notes – there are smart people in the world who write blogs without needing the validation of being called an “expert.” A guy named Duncan Black, who holds a Ph.D in Economics writes a fabulous political blog that merits reading daily. A lawyer/veteran from El Salvador has with a single hand organized the entire left into electoral victory with the power of HTML. Heck, the trombone player for our local Philharmonic just started a blog that The Times even wrote about. Heavy sigh.
It is demeaning to the many bright, well-informed people that write and read many thousands of great blogs each day to suggest their aspirations extend no further than journalism. As wonderful as journalism is, this thing called blogging is different and in many respects far more important.
