Day of truth

Since I started this blog - Saturday, January 23 – one week has passed. 7 days, 7 blog posts. This was our task. Now I can reveal it:

Why I started blogging

“We” are a group at the University of Dortmund taking the course “United States Presidential Election, 2008: U.S. Political Culture and New Media” (English is my minor) held by a young teacher, Svetlana Makeyeva, who is specialized on blogging.

One part of the seminar is this blogging project – start an own blog and for one week create one post per day.

I was a blogo-skeptic

To be honest, the idea didn’t amaze me at all. I didn’t want to be forced to start a blog. I wanted to continue not having anything to do with blogs. When doing research on the internet – privately or as a student of journalism – I left website when noticing that it was “only from a private person”. I didn’t want to rely on this information and instead looked for homepages of organizations, universities, well-known experts or even better, spoke to someone personally.

But I “had to” do it…

I was in this seminar, I did not want to drop it, so I told myself to just see this project as any other homework and just do it. I refused however blogging about anything I wasn’t interested in so I planned to combine it with my major journalistic. I thought about why I don’t like blogs. Because they are unprofessional “wanna-be journalists” threatening our future career. There I had my concept: I could face blogosphere for a week, see how I feel about it then and on top of that inform myself about the current situation between journalists and bloggers and its future outlook. And I started liking the idea…

“Feels good!”

I created the blog choosing name and layout, edited my profile and posted the introduction. Then the first comments of my colleagues came (it was part of the project to comment each others’ blogs) and I have to admit that it felt quite good reading that they liked my idea and were eager to read my following posts. Then I told myself “The next one mustn’t disappoint them.” And when I read other’s blogs I sometimes thought to myself “Hum, his/hers seems more professional or appealing” and then I wondered what I could change about mine to improve it.

Means:
I developed a personal connection to “my blog”, personalized it more and more and wanted it to be as good as possible. Also, I felt a certain “responsibility” towards my readers.

“Damn, have I chosen a job that will soon be history?!”

My second blog post on the history and development of the conflict between bloggers and journalists put me into a crisis. I started wondering if we really had to take bloggers more seriously as concurrence. It seemed like our future was quite uncertain, dark somehow. Rosenberg’s judgement that it was the journalists’ own fault as they failed in settling down in blogosphere.

Rebecca Blood’s point of view calmed me down again. She, although fascinated by blogs demonstrating a lot of advantages they have, made clear that blogs and journalism are two different things which cannot replace each other.

“Let’s give them back!”

After the two blog posts in which I presented the point of view of two bloggers I just had to collect some hardcore arguments from journalists against bloggers – to establish equality but also to feel better. I soon noticed, however, that it was a repetition of the same arguments all the time – blogger’s write gossip, they are arrogant towards journalists, they are not professional and don’t orient themselves at quality standards and they act irresponsibly. Apparently, journalists don’t have that many points to criticize bloggers with.
Even I can tell that there are not only gossip blogs and arrogant? Tja, I would say they have the right to criticize traditional media and consider themselves an alternative source for information.
When it comes to professionalism and quality, I agree with the journalists’ skepticism.

“Ooops, they are much further…”

I was quite surprised but mostly relieved when I understood that the debate about journalists and bloggers is actually over. I liked to hear that they are not only co-existing but even cooperating - journalists start blogging and use information provided by bloggers and bloggers start doing journalism and hire people.

Young journalists stay cool

Finally, I was curious to know how familiar other journalism students were with blogosphere, if they were rather positive or negative towards it and what imagination they had of the future.
It was relieving to see that most of them were not much more experienced with blogging then I. The best was, however, that they weren’t afraid of blogosphere ruining their future.

My newly shaped opinion

Blogs have come to stay, they are not just some temporary trend that will disappear sooner or later.

There are uncountable nonsense, gossip and ego-boost blogs but also highly informative, interesting and entertaining ones written by motivated and talented bloggers. It is however not always easy to find those.

Blogging is not journalism just because a professional journalist writes it – the editorial level is missing, the gatekeepers. Blogs that hire reporters and cling to quality standards on the contrary can in my opinion be journalism. All the other privately blogging persons do definitely not produce journalistic products even if they cover notable events in newspaper style.

People (not everyone, of course ) will always want to be informed about what is going on in this world that is becoming more and more complicated (globalization, technology…). Nowadays we can easily get information on happenings in almost any corner of the world. I think, people will be thankful for professionals to inform them about the most generally relevant (relevance of topics is of course subjective) events. Blogs are a great complementing source for extra information on topics people are individually interested in but the endless blogosphere makes it almost impossible for a single person to select the most important information day by day.

I am looking positively towards my future again, but have opened up for blogging and meanwhile see more advantages about it than threats.

Thanks for that, Svetlana!***

P.S: And, no, I will definitely not shut down MY blog now that the project is over but keep it and update it whenever I feel for it.

Yours,
Johanna*

Young Journalists about Blogging

We’ve heard many different opinions of experts and professionals now – arguments for and against blogging, statements about the present situation as well as imagination of the future of journalism and blogging.

Who will be most concerned by the development of the relation between old and new media is the next generation.

In order to find out what future journalists think about blogging, I made a “mini” survey among some students of the Department for Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Gothenburg (as I happen to be in Sweden at the moment).

In the following I’ll give you the most interesting answers to each of the 3 questions I asked.

In the brackets behind the quotes you find name/program/term/country of the quoted student.

So here are the opinions of some future journalists:

1) Do you have any experiences with blogging?

“I sometimes read blogs, mainly blogs about specific subjects such as politics, technology, traveling (…).”

(Patrik/Journalsitic/4/Sweden)

“I’ve tried to blog a couple of times, but I find it hard to write in an interesting way about something that’s not interesting.”

(Signe/Journalistic/1/Sweden)

“I have a blog and I have blogged since 2006. I also read many blogs.”

(Valdemar/Journalistic/2/Sweden)

“I read blogs, but I haven’t got any of my own.” (5x)

(Jenny/Science of Media and Communication/2/Sweden)

2) What is your attitude towards blogging/bloggers?

“I consider blogs an interesting alternative to traditional media.”

(Anders/Journalistic/2/Sweden)

“… many blogs (…) are too personal and not very interesting to read.”

(Valdemar/Journalistic/2/Sweden)

“I don’t like blogs about what kind of coffee one drinks or who bought a pink skirt yesterday. (…) to me it seems like most of the blogs are ego-boosts…”

(Signe/Journalistic/1/Sweden)

“Blogs are a great way to express yourself.”

(Jenny/Science of Media and Communication/2/Sweden)

“I think there are far too many of them …”

(Patrik/Journalsitic/4/Sweden)

“…it can be a nice opportunity to get free entertainment, information and inspiration.”

(Katrin/Publizistik/5/Germany)

3) How do you think, will the relation between journalism and blogging develop in the future?

“Maybe journalists are going to use more information from blogs in the future.”

(Jenny/Science of Media and Communication/2/Sweden)

“I don’t think that blogging can replace journalism. (…) I think blogging is more a hobby and something for private affairs.”

(Katrin/Publizistik/5/Germany)

“Traditional media and blogging will merge more and more and individual journalists will use blogs to present their work.”

(Anders/Journalistic/2/Sweden)

“I have no idea. I don’t think so much about that. Or blogging. At all.”

(Signe/Journalistic/1/Sweden)

“I think the traditional media (…) will surrender. But blogs can be a good complement. Especially in countries where the international media are forbidden to visit.”

(Valdemar/Journalistic/2/Sweden)

“Blogging is a good way to show your writing abilities and might be a way to start a career as a journalist.”

(Josefin/Science of Media and Communication/2/Sweden)

“Journalists will probably begin to blog more. Blogs will however remain separated from “real” journalism: Most educated journalists will still work for newspapers …”

(Patrik/Journalsitic/4/Sweden)

My findings:

- I didn’t have to explain what a blog is to anyone and they could answer all of

my questions, they are familiar with blogs and have even made up their minds about their importance (some more, some less, of course)

- The clear majority reads blogs from time to time, doesn’t constantly follow a

specific one and doesn’t write an own blog

- Many know that there are interesting blogs one can gain from (knowledge

or at least entertainment) but find the big mass of blogs irrelevant, boring

and often too personal.

- They see positive aspects about blogging: it’s a way to express oneself and

an alternative to traditional media.

- These future journalists don’t question the further existence of blogs.

- They don’t seem to be afraid of them as they are convinced that blogs won’t

replace traditional journalism.

- They see journalism and blogs merge as journalists start blogging and use

information provided by bloggers.

Summary:

The journalism students I asked were neither hyper enthusiastic

about blogs nor radically against them. They seem aware of what is going

on in today’s media buy looking at it from different angles mentioning both

positive and negative aspects.

P.S: I just have to say that doing a survey among journalists is the greatest and easiest thing one can do – they would never say no as the know exactly how it is to desperately try finding people who take 5 minutes to answer some questions.

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT, COLLEAGUES!

DEBATE IS OVER?!

I just had a moment of enlightenment:

The debate “Journalism vs. Bloggers” is over. At least it seems to be…

During the last days, I read a lot about the relation between journalism and blogging, collected arguments from both sides, always wondering who was right.

I was really into this debate, eager to find new points of view because I hadn’t known much about the conflict and finally wanted to inform myself in order to shape my own opinion, my own position towards blogging as a future journalist.

Having shared arguments from different bloggers as well as journalists in my last 3 posts, I found several statements today that astonished me. I had a closer look and noticed that they were dated much later than all the others I dealt with earlier.

So this seems to be the…

Current situation

Coexistence of bloggers and journalists

“Perhaps this [2007] will be the year that we can end forever the silliest and most self-destructive debate in our industry, that of "mainstream" vs. "citizen" journalism.”

(hopes Robert Niles in “The silliest, and most destructive, debate in journalism”, see: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070103niles/)

Mainstream journalists have started blogging – larger blogs hire reporters and do traditional journalism.

(States Mark Glaser in “Distinction Between Bloggers, Journalists Blurring More Than Ever” (2008), see: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/02/distinction-between-bloggers-journalists-blurring-more-than-ever059.html)

"I think the argument about bloggers vs. journalists has been over for years," "We've all co-existed just fine for a while now, and the truth is, the distinction is less relevant every day. There are thousands of journalists who now blog, and there are lots of bloggers who are trained journalists."

(Said Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com according to Mark Glaser, see link above)

“… some organizations have begun to legitimize Web logs as a valid grassroots form of journalism. (…) They have broken major news stories. Several prominent bloggers have become media pundits. And mainstream media outfits (…) are developing blogs to complement their traditional outlets.”

(detects Jessi Hempel in “Are Bloggers Journalists?“, see: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc2005037_7877_tc024.htm)


Bloggers are gaining rights and respect

(from “Blogs: All the noise that fits” by Michael Skube, see: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-skube19aug19,0,3547019.story)

- 2004: Bloggers were awarded press credentials to the Democratic National Convention.

And: Bloggers for the first time received press passes to cover the conventions during the Presidential elections. (According to Jessi Hempel)

- 2006: A Californian Court ruled that bloggers were protected under the state's reporter shield law.

- 2007: At a convention sponsored by Daily Kos in Chicago, “a procession of Democratic presidential hopefuls offered full salutes, knowing that bloggers are busy little bees in organizing political support and fundraising.”


Mainstream Journalism and “citizen journalism” make a good team

(from Robert Niles in “The silliest, and most destructive, debate in journalism”, see: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070103niles/)

"Citizen journalism" provides professional reporters the chance to collect many more data points than they can on their own. And “mainstream media” provide readers an established, popular distribution channel for the information we have and can collect. Not to mention a century of wisdom on sourcing, avoiding libel and narrative storytelling technique.”

Journalists AGAINST Bloggers

In my last two posts we got to know the opinions of one rather radical and one more neutral blogger on the debate “Journalists versus/and Bloggers”.

This post shall give some space to Journalists who express their skepticism/anger towards bloggers – to see the other side of the coin.

The following statements are quotes extracted from articles and can therefore not completely represent the opinion of the journalists. Many of these articles do point out positive aspects about blogging, as well. Nevertheless, things were written the way they are quoted below.

Only Gossip

“The blogosphere is the loudest corner of the Internet, noisy with disputation, manifesto-like postings and an unbecoming hatred of enemies real and imagined.” (Michael Skube)

Arrogance and Irresponsibility

“Moulitsas (Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, Daily Kos) foresees bloggers becoming the watchdogs that watch the watchdog: ‘ We need to keep the media honest, but as an institution, it's important that they exist and do their job well.’ The tone is telling: breezy, confident, self-congratulatory. Subtly, it implies bloggers have all the liberties of a traditional journalist but few of the obligations.” (Michael Skube)

“Everyone has a story to tell, but everyone is not a natural-born storyteller. Everyone has a right to an opinion, but a lot of people confuse it with meaningless fuming and ranting. (…) A lot of people are sick of being nobody. (…) Their thoughts are someone else's opinions and their lives a second-hand mimicry of others' life. Such people form groups, stick together and find comfort in each others' miseries.” (Shobhan Saxena)

Lack of knowledge and Professionalism

"It's like all stuff on the web," Mike Smartt, editor of BBC News Online, told dotJournalism. "Dissemination of information is great, but how much of it is trustworthy? They are an interesting phenomenon, but I don't think they will be as talked about in a year's time." (Mike Smartt quoted by Jody Raynsford)

“One gets the uneasy sense that the blogosphere is a potpourri of opinion and little more. The opinions are occasionally informed, often tiresomely cranky and never in doubt. Skepticism, restraint, a willingness to suspect judgment and to put oneself in the background -- these would not seem to be a blogger's trademarks.” (Michael Skube)

“They are opinionated, ranting, often incoherent and frequently biased with little regard for accuracy or balance. They are also compellingly addictive and threatening to emerge as a new brand of journalism…” (Jody Raynsford)

“It's good fun, but this is no journalism. Learning and mastering good journalism is tough. You learn it in libraries, on flooded streets, in front of a rioting mob, in the middle of crossfire between a militia and a military, in war trenches, in the corridors of power and in the hamlets of deprivation. (…) Bloggers don't have to worry about such inane things. They can learn history and politics from google. They can get their facts from newspapers and then slam them with their half-baked opinions.“ (Shobhan Saxena)

I took these quotes from the following articles:

- Blogs: All the noise that fits

The hard-line opinions on weblogs are no substitute for the patient fact-

finding of reporters.

by Michael Skube

19/8/2007

To the article: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-skube19aug19,0,3547019.story

- Blogging: the new journalism?

by Jody Raynsford

25/03/03

To the article: http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/5604.php

- Bloggers' rubbish

by Shobhan Saxena

1/10/2006

To the article: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Bloggers-

rubbish/articleshow/2056809.cms