July 13th, 2007
Bloggers Can Be Journalists
Thanks to Dick Costolo, zen master entrepreneur and all around righteous dude, who cited Publishing 2.0 as one of his favorite blogs in a WSJ piece about 10 years of blogging, I got asked to make a video. Choosing from a bunch of questions, I decided to go serious on the blogger vs. journalist (non)issue, and recorded the video below in a hotel room late at night after traveling all day and before presenting at a conference early the next morning. Those excuses aside, I think it’s safe to say that video blogging isn’t for everyone.
But blogging, video or otherwise, absolutely can be journalism — see the rant for yourself (which is intended for those outside the circle of blogger navel gazers who have tread over this issue many times).
Anyway, thanks Dick — you are way too kind, and I am not worthy. And kudos to WSJ for letting bloggers speak for themselves unedited, and for using an embeddable video player.
Oh, and thanks to all of you reading this who work hard to keep me honest — you guys rock.
Topics: Blogging | Journalism
Powered by 
Design by 
or have been swindled into believing that video magically makes things better. Consider Scott Karp, poor guy. He’s a writer. A good one. And admits that he’s no video blogger. But the Wall Street Journal Online asked for a video piece. Ouch. This one doesn’t even recognize that it’s a video piece. It’s merely an essay read to the camera. The Marty Feldman in the headlights effect kicks in. Sitting in a hotel room reading essay copy into your laptop
value proposition of the vendor. We do more index oriented architectures that we do thought leadership How to move the herd Microsoft has benefited the open source community at-large more than BEA, Oracle, CA and HP combined. They deserve more credit Bloggers can be journalists Scott Karp comments on something that is known by the masses but not accepted by the status quo. Maybe some predictions in when traditional media will come to respect bloggers is in order Movable Type 4.0 Beta Review
+ Discussion: duncanriley.com, GigaOM, Life On the Wicked Stage, Webomatica and Publishing 2.0
Nicely done and congrats! I can’t think of anyone who writes about publishing that deserves this more.
Keep up the good work!
[…] Here’s a pretty cool article over at The Wall Street Journal about the past ten years of blogging. As a testament to blogs working in conjunction with traditional journalism, I found it via Scott Karp’s Publishing 2.0 blog. […]
Where do hobby, opinion, humor, and activist bloggers fit in your definition? They can have “seriousness of purpose” but can’t be called journalists.
All generalizations, including this one, are usually wrong.
Mark,
First of all, there’s no generalization here — I didn’t say all bloggers are journalists, I said bloggers CAN be journalists IF they act like journalists.
I also address the issue of other types of blogging in the video.
Pub2.0 is one of my top resources as well, glad to see you’re getting some love!
[Ask the Wizard is amazing, too]
Taking a cue from Zefrank with the “no blinking while on camera” thing?
Ethan,
Thanks.
Like I said, video blogging isn’t for everyone (at least Zefrank has the virtue of being really funny).
Forget what I said about generalizations, I was just trying to be clever.
“I said bloggers CAN be journalists IF they act like journalists.”
I never heard you say that.
You said that someone who publishes online with blogging software with the intent to distribute news AND INFORMATION with a serious sense of purpose is a journalist.
(This is where video blogging fails. No written record. Maybe there needs to be a application that will publish a transcript of a video blog.)
I read the Dilbert Blog today and Adams tells “how to write funny.” Seems to me he had serious intent, but that’s not journalism.
With my blog, I’m trying to connect with the people in our community about the business side of newspapers. That’s not journalism.
Mark,
With all due respect, you’re reducing this to a semantic quibble with all of your null cases. My intent is not to create a hard and fast definition of journalism that is over-inclusive. There are many people who are distributing information on the web who are obviously not practicing journalism. I acknowledged that in the video. My point is that there are many people distributing news and information on the web who do not work for accredited news organizations but who ARE practicing journalism — journalism has become an activity that anyone can engage in rather than a profession tied to employment. A section of the video where I clarified this was cut out.
Sure there is a danger of expanding the boundaries of journalist too wide. But I think the risk of dealing with that is much preferable to the bunker mentality that clings to an age when distribution channels were tightly controlled and a relatively small number of companies could have a monopoly on the practice of journalism.
[…] Scott Karp på Publishing 2.0 tycker kan du se här. Jag tycker han för ett vettigt resonemang. En blogg är ett papper. Vad det fylls med avgör om […]
Scott,
I don’t believe there’s any need for us bloggers to be defensive on whether blogging is journalism. I think it is up to those who call themselves “journalists” to tell us who they are. The modern day scripture on this issue is the book “The Elements of Journalism” by Bill Kovachs and Tom Rosenstiel from the Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism. They tell us that the essence of journalism is “verification” then admit that there is no such discipline that is codified, taught at j-schools, or even taught on-the-job — verification is whatever each reporter feels is comfortable to him or her.
Your definition is as good as anybody’s. For me, I prefer to define “news,” not journalism, and my definition is “New information about a subject of common interest that is shared within a community,” a category which includes today’s “journalists,” bloggers like us, and social bloggers, who provide news of friends and family. (Steve Boriss, The Future of News)
[…] criticism of it. They even feature my pal Scott Karp from Publishing 2.0, who does a video essay on blogging and journalism. And as Jason at Webomatica points out, it’s interesting to see that Mia Farrow has taken up […]
[…] criticism of it. They even feature my pal Scott Karp from Publishing 2.0, who does a video essay on blogging and journalism. And as Jason at Webomatica points out, it’s interesting to see that Mia Farrow has taken up […]
I appreciate your writing, one of the best in publishing/net questions, but why the video?
And “journalism” and above all “journalists” are a problem, not an answer. There is no such thing as a journalist away from a “newspaper” or “tv”. Journalism is a social, not an individual category.
Pedro,
The video was WSJ’s idea, not mine — they asked a number of the “favorite” bloggers to do videos. I would have preferred to write my comments — I conceded in this post, i.e. “video blogging isn’t for everyone,” that video is not my best medium.
Media does not define journalism — media is just a distribution channel.
“you’re reducing this to a semantic quibble ”
That’s respect?
Respect would have been to either ignore me, or send me an email, not insult me on your blog.
You A list bloggers are a pretty closed minded bunch.
Scott Boriss has a good idea:
I think it is up to those who call themselves “journalists” to tell us who they are.”
Mark,
Calling it a “semantic quibble” is an insult? I certainly didn’t mean to insult you, and I apologize that you took offense. Calling your argument a semantic quibble is a critique of your argument, not of you personally.
If you wanted to have a private conversation, you should have emailed me to begin with, and I would have gladly debated it in private. When you chose to comment on my blog, you made it public. And I might remind you that your opening salvo wasn’t exactly the friendliest:
“All generalizations, including this one, are usually wrong.”
Given that I’m trying to expend the concept of journalist, it’s hard to see how I’m being closed-minded.
If you want to know who I am, read my About page. But I agree that full disclosure of who is behind the dissemination of news and information is an essential ingredient to being able to call it journalism.
Regarding the stereotyping of “You A-list bloggers” (along the lines of “you newspapers people”), if you got back and read comments on my blog from January 2006, when there were about three people reading this blog, you’ll see that I took the same approach now as I did then. I love a healthy debate. I don’t engage in personal insults (e.g. You A-list bloggers are a pretty closed minded bunch). And I keep everything in public, unless someone privately sends me a request to take it offline.
Want to be called a journalist. Be my guest.
I have been one for 15 years and I would much rather be called doctor, lawyer or landscaper. In fact, at parties I try and avoid the subject altogether.
But — to me at least — there is a big difference between journalism and much of the “blogging” stuff out there.
From what I see most the blogs are a single person or a group of people pontificating on a piece of news. They are not really digging up anything new, rather they are putting their own slant on an issue.
And for those sites that to claim to break news, it’s usually non-sourced. You can take them seriously, even if they do get lucky now and then.
As a journalist/reported/editor/whatever I spend most of the day on the phone or out in the world talking to people and often quoting them. I then sit down, write the story and a few editors go over it. Pretty simple.
From what I can see that is significantly different than what’s going on the Web today.
Chris,
A lot of people in journalism are defining journalism as “this is what I’ve always done, then therefore that’s all it can ever be.” But the world has changed — radically. Just because a lot of what is happening on the web today is different from what you’ve done as a journalist, doesn’t mean that none of it’s journalism (even if most of it is not).
I spend of my day hearing what key sources in my industry have to say — the difference is I read a lot of it on their blogs, because they are saying it in public, rather than through controlled channels.
Some of what I do is original reporting, but some of what I do is what the New York Times calls “News Analysis” — giving people perspective on the news, beyond just the objective reporting of facts. Certainly gather a fact base is at the core of journalism, but there are many rings around that, and news analysis is one of them.
If you’re so ashamed at being a journalist, I don’t see why you should object to others taking up the mantle and trying to evolve it.
[…] Wall Street Journal’s review of 10 years of blogging. I found it first online, pointed to by Scott Karp because Dick Costolo cited Publishing 2.0 as one of his […]
If you’re blogging for the purposes of informing others, you fall into one of four categories:
1) You’re a pipeline.; info comes in one end and out the other, not unlike an alimentary canal.
2) You’re an aggregator; simply collating links & text for the convenient use of others.
3) You’re a synthesist, analyzing multiple pieces of information to develop a new piece of information be it a fresh point of view, a derivative factoid, or simple summation.
4) You’re an original thinker (or trying); doing the synthesist one better by going out and gathering additional information –perhaps doing some original research– and developing a thesis.
So…. you draw the line. I know where mine is.
Of course, if you’re passing judgement in the course of performing the duties of #1 or #2 above, then you’re a critic. I’ll leave it to others to decide whether critics are journalists!
Jay,
Journalists traditionally engage in all of your categories, 1-4, so bloggers who engage in any or all of these are journalists, right?
Scott,
Nobody needs to do it a particular way or style. And they certainly don’t need to do it my way.
So if someone wants to be called journalist… Poof! Let their wish be granted.
But perusing other web sites and writing an opinion about it really doesn’t strike me as an evolved form of journalism, or even something necessarily unique.
And a little shame isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It keeps you grounded. Maybe at the next party I will call myself a “blogger.” Perhaps it will result in better conversations.
Chris,
“perusing other web sites and writing an opinion”
That’s a favorite way for old media types to reductively dismiss all bloggers, but this blog and many others gather original facts and quote sources, the core activities of “evolved journalism.”
But the issue of who gets claim to which title is really just semantics. What’s important is that we’re all part of the same increasingly complex network of news and information gathering and distribution. Dispensing with notions of “us” and “them” is the best way to really evolve journalism in the direction it desperately needs to evolve in a networked media world.
At parties, try calling yourself a “writer” — that doesn’t seem to have lost its mystique.
[…] got into a pissing contest with an A lister. He said bloggers are journalists. I […]
Pedro asks the appropriate question: “…why the video?”
To which you respond:
“Media does not define journalism — media is just a distribution channel.”
Careful where you tread Marshall (and I don’t mean Mathers)! The media & distribution DO define the content of a message and the manner in which it is communicated.
The answer to “why a video” is NOT “because the told me to create a video.” The answer is, because someone thought a video was “necessary.” Why they thought a video was necessary is an entire discussion in itself.
That video was not necessary in any context. It could (in fact, was almost) a still picture with recorded voiceover. You had an opportunity to resist the idea that video is necessary to the delivery of information/content in a modern context. It’s not!
We could discuss at length the “language” of film/video/camerawork and why a failure to use that language impaired your video. But, that’s a tangent to the more interesting, “why a video?”
jm
funny, i just saw this video tonight after writing something that touches on essentially the same terrain. the cultural divide between “professional-quality” expression vs. “amateur.” perhaps such a bifurcated easy division is becoming less and less relevant anymore. we need more options for talking about quality than just “has passed through an established gate” vs. “hasn’t”. (here’s the post, by the way: http://social-creature.com/the-cult-of-the-gate-crasher )