Is blogging a valid form of journalism?

Friday, 8 December 2006, 14:12

A journalism student has sent an e-mail to several people asking whether “blogging is a valid form of journalism”. Robin Hamman of the BBC blogs project offered a great response:

Journalism and blogging need not be separate activities undertaken by separate people and I certainly don’t believe that journalism is something that can and should only be done by trained professionals.

I know journalists who blog and non-journalists who write and publish articles in newspapers and magazines. Trying to distinguish between who is a blogger and who is a journalism really isn’t very helpful or meaningful. That said, the vast majority of bloggers wouldn’t call themselves journalists, they’d say they are people who post some stuff online for friends and family to read. And yes, there are a lot of blogs about cute kittens, babies, and other topics that are of intense interest to an audience of 3 or 4 people.

As does Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media:

An equivalent question would be: Is publishing on paper a valid form of journalism?

Blogging is simply a publishing method — a website.

Some blogs are clearly journalism. Most are not. The bloggers who are doing journalism are for the most part following standard journalistic principles such as thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and independence as well as transparency.

I’ll be saving these somewhere to throw at the next person who gets the old “blogging vs journalism” chestnut going again.

Later: On del.icio.us, Guardian blogs editor Kevin Anderson writes:

My reply to this is that most people confuse a technology with content and also think mistakenly that most bloggers write about current events.

Even Later: Andy Dickinson expands brilliantly on Gillmor’s and Anderson’s important insistance that the medium does not make the message:

If you are a journalist first, there are exciting opportunities in medium free content creation. If you are a print person or a TV person only, there is nothing but competition.

If we can move in to that mindset then we can have an honest debate about what works in the new digital environment. We can base that on an understanding that all mediums impact on the content we produce not just pick at one.

The online medium doesn’t reduce all content to hot of the presses, mistake filled news briefs just as print doesn’t expand every article in to a well rounded commentary, dripping in meaning and context. Journalists do that.

Exactly. Journalism in blog form is “invalid” only to those who fail to distinguish between journalism and (print) publishing.

Entry Filed under: Blogs, Journalism

7 Comments Add some more of your own

1. Paul Bradshaw | 8 December 2006 at 1445

That person also posted the question to my blog at - my response:

Do I think “that blogging is journalism?” Some of it, yes.

Do I think “that it is fair to journalists who earned four year degrees and know the ethics (whether they practice them or not)to be over-ridden by bloggers who claim to have the “real news”? Or do you think that blogging is a more direct source of information rather than reading it from a journalist who may be censored?”

Firstly, your question is loaded and badly phrased, giving me only two options, both of which I disagree with. I would disagree that graduates are “over-ridden” by bloggers - in fact any graduate with any sense would be blogging themselves. Bloggers are hardly taking over the news industry, but rather providing an alternative or complementary news service to a public increasingly distrusting of time-starved or lazy journalists who simply rewrite press releases. They are also a great way to hear from people ‘on the ground’, whether that’s people living through the Iraq war, troops fighting there, or police, nurses, teachers and scientists who know more about topical issues than journalists and politicians.
2. SpaceyG | 8 December 2006 at 1742

Blogging can be a FORM of journalism. It really is… well… blogging, for lack of a better term. I often blog gossipy items from a first-person, firsthand account of places and events where I’ve been. That is, essentially, journalism: you “report” — be it from your neighborhood pub or from Baghdad.

Unlike traditional journalism though, I make no pretense of operating on behalf of any company, entity, or ridiculous basis of impartiality. I am my own person. Love it, or click on over to something else.

What I do do is write, on my own cheap dime, about places and people and events a lot quicker than weeklies or magazines, and often about things of local interest ignored by any road kill-obsessed local news (Atlanta) organization, making blogging the perfect forum to become a — great gossip columnist!

Call it what you will, it’s also perfect for someone in video production, as posts can be done on the keyboard, or on video. I started doing that just the other day, and can’t wait to do more. Watch out Ze Frank…
3. Lenslinger | 9 December 2006 at 0335

http://lenslinger.com/
4. Andy Dickinson.net »&hellip | 12 December 2006 at 1157

[...] An interesting debate (or none debate as some would have it) play out across a number of blog’s last week. My in point was Martin Stabe’s answer to a student asking:”Is blogging a valid form of journalism”. [...]
5. Strange Attractor: Pickin&hellip | 31 January 2007 at 1606

Martin Stabe » Is blogging a valid form of journalism?
6. Martin Stabe » Blog&hellip | 3 February 2007 at 1439

[...] bloggers face questions like this every few months, and the problem is always the same. For some reason, many journalists and journalism students are [...]
7. Monique Aros - JOURN100&hellip | 13 January 2008 at 2154

a journalist really isn’t very helpful or meaningful.” Ironically, this debatable question and quote was posted on a blog website. Bloggers are essential in providing unbaised opinions, providing alternative, uncensored views to a distressed society.http://www.martinstabe.com/blog/2006/12/08/is-blogging-a-valid-form-of-journalism/With all of that said, I believe blogging has significantly impacted the print journalism industry. It is rapidly being overtaken by self-made journalists on internet blogging sites; gaining more popularity and influence over traditional news articles.

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