Some bloggers are journalists. Some journalists are bloggers. By and large, however, the groups don’t overlap that much. Yet each group is doing much the same thing – disseminating information, ideas, opinions, etc. Steve Outing, a columnist for Editor and Publisher and the editor of E-Media Tidbits for Poynter.org, has written a pair of articles on the Poynter web site on what each group can learn from each other. They are titled just that:

• What Journalists Can Learn from Bloggers

• What Bloggers Can Learn from Journalists

Here’s a summary of what he says:

Journalists should stop distaining people who publish web logs. They are part of a new and vast movement that gives a voice and audience to people who have never had one. Instead, journalists should understand what this phenomenon is about. Blogging has its limitations and lapses, but there are some good things about blogging that journalists should pay attention to:

• Transparency. “Many bloggers feel that it’s OK to publish just about anything if they make it clear where it came from, what they know about it, and that it may or may not be accurate.” Traditional journalist rarely even attempts to achieve this kind of transparency for its readers.

• Speed. Bloggers have learned the art of writing quickly and (sometimes) well. The very best bloggers don’t waster words or the readers’ time.

• News as conversation. Most traditional journalists don’t want to have much to do with their audiences. They want to give them the news and be done it with. Bloggers see news as an ongoing conversation about the information.

• Personality. The nature of blogging is that it promotes not just information but the personality of the disseminator. Traditional journalists attempt to emphasize the “impersonal reporter,” a concept that has some advantages but deprives the reader of any insight into who the reporter is or what he or she is thinking.

• Corrections. Most good bloggers admit their mistakes – quickly and prominently. Some relish being corrected by their readers because that confirms that people are really paying attention. Traditional journalists are reluctant and slow to admit any mistakes, believing that to do so harms their credibility.

Bloggers are pioneering a new type of journalism. In doing so, many of them want to leave all of the old journalism behind. They shouldn’t. Blogging should not be, as Outing quotes Wonkette’s Ana Marie Cox, “all chocolate cake and no potatoes.” Readers ultimately want substance – information and opinions that are accurate and original. For that, bloggers will have to pick up some practices from journalists, including:

• Editing. The major issue between journalists and bloggers is the presence of absence of an editor. Many journalists believe blogging isn’t journalism because most blogs do not have an editor – someone to read and pass judgment on what they have written. Bloggers counter with the thought that what they publish has value because it isn’t edited; it comes from the writer directly to the reader. Outing suggests (rightly, I think) that there is more value in “editing” than “not editing.” Bloggers should at least back edit – edit their work once it is on the site. The best bloggers, he suggests, will develop some system of editing that provides them a safety nets for the perils of publishing, particularly libel.

• Reporting. Bloggers may not consider themselves journalists, but they should act like journalists occasionally – at least by gathering original information from good, reliable sources. The more original information, the better the blog.

• Culture of journalism. Bloggers should stop dissing journalists and enter the culture of the profession. They have a lot to learn from web sites such as Poynter.org and Journalism.org.

• Ethics. Bloggers should develop a code of ethics that governs their behavior and what they write. Bloggers are beginning to get together as a community (they’re even having national meetings now). Should a blogger take money for blogging about a person, proposal, idea or organization? Right now, there are no rules or guidelines.

• Fairness. One attraction of a web log is that a blogger can take a shot at a target without the target being about to shoot back. Fairness is a tenet of journalism. It’s a good one, and bloggers should adopt it.

• Writing. Journalists learn to put the most important information they have first. That’s the basis of the inverted pyramid style of writing. It gets information out there and doesn’t waste the reader’s time. Bloggers should do the same.

• Accuracy. Presenting accurate information in an accurate context – so readers can interpret it accurately – is the number one goal of the journalist. Bloggers would be well advised to take up this goal, too.

Jim Stovall (Posted Jan. 17, 2005)

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