The great harp on the journalist and blogger ‘continuum’

The reporters in the 1930s

A business journalist friend of mine put up the sentence “Bloggers are replacing journos” on her MSN status. So I IMed (instant message) her to inquire more about her status message. It turns out that she is considering doing a story on bloggers. So we talk a little on the blogging phenomenon and soon our discussion went to the crux of her message.

My contention to her MSN message is that most bloggers do not intentionally aimed to “replace” MSM (Mainstream media) journalists.

They are just regular folks who presented their views on their blogs. And these views sometimes (or most times) happened to be alternative to what the MSM is reporting.

Or on other times, they take issues with the perceived reporting bias in MSM and seek to express their opinions. Some do so in a substantiated and well-written way. Some wrote long convoluted rants. Some just posts pictures of them, heavily photoshopped and bitch about their day, people they met and the weather.

Perhaps consequentially, the alternative and rather timeliness information uploaded by the bloggers attracts the interest of the general public.

They decide to read the bloggers’ posts rather than MSM.

And perhaps that is the reason why the MSM started “character assassination” by questioning the credibility, professionalism and integrity of the blogger persona, so as to put MSM journalists as more professional and higher-than-thou beings.

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This fallacy leads to a widespread belief that bloggers are “inferior” journalists (if they can be called as journalists or they even care to be called as one) and that the MSM journalist, the “real” journalist is the sole authority on news reporting and analysis.

Just as the blogosphere is filled with many incoherent bloggers who wrote in a biased manner, there are also journalists who do the same, except they are a more coherent bunch. But nonetheless biased. Just look at the amount of material from broadcast TV network for Jon Stewart’s Daily Show.

I think there is a growing responsibility vested in some prominent bloggers. They report on news with the same vigorous fact-checking and research often associated with MSM journalists (even though that claim on local MSM journalist is debatable).

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However, before we launch into yet another diatribe against the journalis-blogger continuum, I would like to make the point of this post as clear as I can be – the emphasis I’m making is that the issue should not be about journalist versus blogger.

Why do we have to put them on opposite ends? Why can’t they learn from each other and understand the burgeoning role of the online media as a communications platform of ideas.

So the issue emphasis should be on how these seemingly separate groups can work together or at the very least, compete amiably to provide the best information source for the public.

Many bloggers are early adopters of new online technologies and the MSM are just playing catchup. However MSM has the resources available to provide hard-to-get news, e.g. a news bureau in Iraq. In addition, the print media is a dying breed because they are as Jason Jones called it – aged news. Even the venerable New York Times is losing millions of money.

Jason Jones even had a joke for Bill Keller, executive editor of New York Times (4.45 min):

Jason Jones: What’s black and white and have red all over?
Bill Keller (smiles): A newspaper
Jason Jones (chuckles): No, your balance sheet.

Ouch!

Here’s an exchange (from 3:00 min) between Jason Jones and Rick Berke, assistant managing editor of New York Times:

Jason Jones (JJ): Why is aged news better than real news?
Rick Berke (RB): I’ve never heard the term aged news.
JJ: Well the newspaper is aged, that means yesterday’s news.
RB: Not necessarily.
JJ: Give me one thing in there that happened today.
(long pause)
RB: but um..
(another pause)
RB: nothing here happened today, but several things didn’t happen yesterday
JJ: So it’s even older?
RB: Depends on your perspective.

So it’s apparent that MSM needs an online strategy to stay afloat in an increasing electronic-ed world. And I think bloggers can provide an inspiration, rather than as an adversary, in the bid to satisfy the information needs of the general populace.

I’m still a paper person, but if I ‘m fed bullshit and “aged” news by the MSM, you can’t blame me for going online for my info needs.

Update (17 Jun 2009) – A New York Times article reported that the US state department requested Twitter to postpone its scheduled maintenance to allow Iranians to share information with the outside world.