In the Unverified Digital World, Are Journalists and Bloggers Equal? 156
oztechmuse (2323576) writes "As the source of news moves increasingly away from traditional channels to the millions of people carrying mobile phones and sharing commentary, photos and video on social networks, the distinction between journalists and bloggers has become increasingly blurred. Making sense of this type of information has been as much a challenge for journalists as it has bloggers. Journalists, like bloggers, have had to learn new skills in working in this environment. Highlighting this has been the release of the Verification Handbook which attempts to educate journalists in how to process user-generated content in the form of videos or images acknowledging that much of the reporting about situations, especially emergency ones, comes from the public. The techniques outlined are accessible to anyone reporting on a story, adding to the eroding gap between bloggers and journalists."
The problematic word is verified (Score:3, Interesting)
Shield laws mean that professional (read: attached to a major news organization) journalists will always be more legitimate than bloggers, as they have legal protections that bloggers can only dream about.
Re:The problematic word is verified (Score:5, Interesting)
Shield laws mean that professional (read: attached to a major news organization) journalists will always be more legitimate than bloggers, as they have legal protections that bloggers can only dream about.
Not according to the 9th Circuit Court [theatlantic.com]. Bloggers are journalists, according to that ruling.
Re:The problematic word is verified (Score:5, Informative)
That's a new direction which, fortunately, courts are shifting towards -- that there are no meaningful distinctions between journalists AKA "The Press", in First Amendment terms, and everybody else merely exercising First Amendment free speech.
Some say there should be no distinction at all w.r.t. speech, which I agree with. You know Congress would try to restrict speech by restricting presses under some trumped-up rationale. That's why that clause is there, not to grant a larger free speech pass to the press.
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AFAIK, the real reason for the Second Amendment isn't personal protection or hunting, but as a final check on the government as a whole by the people.
In that sense, I reject the notion as archaic. In such a scenario, we would have to rely on persuasion to cause mass defection of troops, but that has often been the case anyway.
Re:The problematic word is verified (Score:5, Interesting)
The problematic word really IS "verified". No journalist should ever have to be "verified". Want to be a member of the press? Just print a card with the word "PRESS" in bold letters. Did Thomas Paine carry a press card? Was Ben Frankiin "verified"? Screw any member or agency of gubbermint that wants to "verify" a journalist!
Re:The problematic word is verified (Score:5, Interesting)
I write about medicine. I read the journals and go to the conferences.
I was passing by New York City Hall (during the Giuliani Administration) and I saw a demonstration by AIDS activists, something that I had been covering. I always like to talk to the real people involved, so I tried to get over to the demonstration.
Giuliani put a locked gate around City Hall. I had to stop by a guard post. I told the guard what I was doing, and he told me I needed press identification. I told him that I should be able to go to the demonstration simply as a member of the general public. But he was an asshole on a power trip and insisted that I needed a press ID. Finally I saw somebody else walk through without press ID, so I just walked through myself.
I later called up City Hall to complain about the guard, and went through a long series of written complaints to supervisors who were perpetually on vacation or had been moved to a different job. Finally the City Hall guards let some politician's friend with a gun into City Hall without screening, and he shot and killed a City Council member. It was no longer a good time to press on with a complaint like that.
I also called the City Hall press office and asked them what the requirements were for a press card. They were actually reasonable as written. The original purpose of a press card is to let you cross police lines during a fire or other emergency, or big events or demonstrations, and they gave press cards to reporters who regularly covered them for news media. Counter-cultural publications like the Village Voice and WBAI-FM got press cards. Less formally, they let the cops know when the reporters were watching so they didn't beat up demonstrators with cameras around. With time, press passes turned into a prestige item that publishers and other freeloaders used to try to get out of speeding tickets, get free admission to the circus, cage free meals at restaurants, etc. You had to fill out a form and apply, documenting that you actually do cover events where a press card is useful. I thought that it might actually make a good story, for the National Writers Union newsletter or someplace, "How to get a police press card."
I decided that I don't need your fucking press card. I can find out enough just by exercising the rights I have as an ordinary citizen, and exercising my willingness to go to jail if that's what it takes, to get my readers the information that they want and have a right to know.
One of the things that always amused me was the outrage of the press (like the New York Times) when the cops beat up their reporters during a demonstration (at the Chicago 1968 Democratic Convention, for example). Why weren't you doing your job of reporting the truth when we were getting beaten up by the cops, in front of your own eyes?
So blogger, shmogger. You don't need a press pass to write journalism. All you need are your rights under the Constitution and the willingness to get beaten up and go to jail.
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Exactly. Once you require that press members be "verified" by some outside agency, you've brought the press under political control. All someone would need to do to control the press w
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Betteridge's Law in effect... (Answer = No) (Score:5, Insightful)
Journalists (as the world's professional content creators) versus Bloggers (the world's amateur - sometimes very much so - content creators) are similar in the same way that the guy hacking together application code in his bedroom in his spare time is the same as the salaried analyst programmer employed full time to do that.
They both produce content, and the amateur may produce content which would be considered of an acceptable standard by the professional. But the average amateur produces content which is of a much lower standard than the average professional (no, I have no specific citation to prove that, other than my own experience of working with both types on projects).
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It's more rule than exception that the quality of the professional is on the same level of the amateur. Both in "journalism" and "software development".
Re:Betteridge's Law in effect... (Answer = No) (Score:5, Interesting)
this site exists for a reason [thedailywtf.com]
Re:Betteridge's Law in effect... (Answer = No) (Score:4, Insightful)
None of that precludes equal protection under the law. Everybody has the same rights as a journalist, or any other person. As such, we all have the right not to answer to any authority. Unfortunately the average person doesn't have the heavy weaponry needed to protect those rights.
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I agree with your headline but not with your post. The answer is no, bloggers and journalists are not equal, because blogs are the source of most high-quality journalism. Especially for science and politics, "professional" journalists in the Western world produce lamentably bad stories. The bloggers routinely have to fact-check and provide appropriate context for stories that a journalist could have corrected with five minutes on Ask Jeeves.
It is true that there are a small number of very good pro journalis
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The right question to ask is, what is the source of MOST of the HIGH QUALITY news, and the answer to that is blogs.
I'd say a better question is what is the average level of quality produced. CNN, Fox, BBC, etc. may have their own slant on things, but in general they get most of the facts right. Granted, CNN may post "Child Run Down by Drunk Driver," while Fox reports "Juvenile Vandalizes Lawyer's Car with Fresh Human Blood," describing the same story. But, you generally don't have to slog through a million pages of "My Cat Did the CUTEST THING!!!" or "Aliens Spotted Eating at Denny's" to get there. If the major sour
None of what you say is true (Score:3, Informative)
I'd say a better question is what is the average level of quality produced.
Even using that metric, your conclusion is flawed.
CNN may post "Child Run Down by Drunk Driver,"
Or that a plane was swallowed by a black hole...
you generally don't have to slog through a million pages of "My Cat Did the CUTEST THING!!!"
Hint: BuzzFeed is not a blog, and most blogs do not have that problem. They have some advertising on the side but so do most commercial news sites (CNN does on the home page).
The other major proble
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CNN may post "Child Run Down by Drunk Driver,"
Or that a plane was swallowed by a black hole...
What actually happened
Near the end of CNN's special primetime report on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on Wednesday, anchor Don Lemon read a pair of tweets he received from viewers suggesting the plane's disappearance could be the result of a "black hole," Bermuda Triangle or an occurence akin to the television series "Lost."
And, it wouldn't surprise me if those tweeters got the suggestion from a blog. I say this because one of my cow-irker repeatedly bombards the rest of us with blogs claiming that the plane was hijacked by the U.S. government to kidnap Chinese scientists, that the plane was then flown to Diego Garcia, and that everyone who was not considered useful is now a slave working in the kitchens of Diego Garcia.
Journalists and bloggers are not the same, but journalists are slowly sinking to the
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because I know that the journalists are, as I said, under pressure to run a story as soon as possible, and often play fast and loose with facts in a way bloggers cannot and still maintain readers.
You really think so?
Personally, I would think if what you said were true, we wouldn't have any vaccine deniers, Oprah would be penniless, & Rush Limbaugh would never have been famous at all. Really, how does Rush keep any viewers despite his wonderful record of lies, b.s., inaccuracies and hypocrisy?
No, they don't write, but they're of the same class as youtube bloggers. They are 2 of many that have proven the only thing you need to get readers or viewers, is a well-presented story. Facts be damned.
B
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because I know that the journalists are, as I said, under pressure to run a story as soon as possible, and often play fast and loose with facts in a way bloggers cannot and still maintain readers.
You really think so?
Personally, I would think if what you said were true, we wouldn't have any vaccine deniers, Oprah would be penniless, & Rush Limbaugh would never have been famous at all. Really, how does Rush keep any viewers despite his wonderful record of lies, b.s., inaccuracies and hypocrisy?
No, they don't write, but they're of the same class as youtube bloggers. They are 2 of many that have proven the only thing you need to get readers or viewers, is a well-presented story. Facts be damned.
Bloggers just don't have the resources, the time, the inclination, the requirement, or the ability to do the kind of fact checking that mainstream media does. If a blogger spends 6 months intensely investigating a story, that is 180 blog posts they didn't write. The only thing that hurts bloggers total viewer #s is not posting regularly. While many outlets, *cough* cnn *cough*, have tried to follow the blogger money train in terms of story quality, and there have been scandals and honest mistakes in mainstream, they still have the power to produce quality, in-depth, reports. Bloggers don't. Just like individual code-whizes can produce some stunningly awesome apps, hacks, & snippets, but can't, in a 1000 years, just "whip up" a quality OS.
Do *some* bloggers do better and produce quality stuff? Sure. To me though, that only proves a million monkeys working together can eventually produce Shakespeare: 999,999 monkeys throwing shit + 1 Mojo Jojo.
Remind me again how did Linux come into existance?
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but can't, in a 1000 years, just "whip up" a quality OS.
Remind me again how did Linux come into existance?
Are you trying to imply that Linus wrote it in a vacuum, by himself, without GNU, MINIX, Unix, or the public's help, like a blogger writing a story all by himself without an editor, research team, or a guaranteed audience no matter what crap he spits out?
If you truly think his involvement in Linux was as complete as a blogger's involvement on a story so much so that you feel your rhetorical question repudiates my points instead of merely pedantically attacking a blogger quality spur-of-the-moment analogy...
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Remind me again how did Linux come into existance?
Came into existence? Sure there's the romanticized thought of Linus single handedly pounding away code at home. However there's a lot of paid Linux development going on. Here's a random cite:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open... [zdnet.com]
1. No company affiliation:17.9% 2. Red Hat: 11.9% 3. Novell/SUSE: 6.4% 4. Intel: 6.2% 5. IBM: 6.1% 6. Unknown: 5.1% 7. Consultant: 3.0% 8. Oracle: 2.1% 9. Academia: 1.3% 10. Nokia: 1.2%
While The top ten contributors, including the groups "unknown" and "none" make up over 60% of the total contributions to the kernel, the Foundation points out that even if you assume that "all of the 'unknown' contributors were working on their own time, over 75% of all kernel development is demonstrably done by developers who are being paid for their work."
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Near the end of CNN's special primetime report on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on Wednesday, anchor Don Lemon read a pair of tweets he received from viewers suggesting the plane's disappearance could be the result of a "black hole," Bermuda Triangle or an occurence akin to the television series "Lost."
Lemon then turned to Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and said, "I know it's preposterous, but is it preposterous, do you think, Mary?"
"It is," Schiavo replied. "A small black hole would suck in our entire universe. So we know it's not that. The Bermuda Triangle is often weather, and 'Lost' is a TV show."
"Right," Lemon said.
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You produce a very biased sample and an invalid result.
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Yes, but too bad that "Blog" merely describes the media something is published while "Journalism" describes a field of work.
These are not mutually exclusive.
You might find Journalism in print medie, radio, TV and blogs, and at the same time might find professional content and cat photos in Blogs.
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Just because I can perform CPR doesn't make me a doctor.
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*Just because I can perform CPR doesn't make me a doctor.*
no, but it makes you capable of performing cpr and thus capable of giving some first response aid...
but a degree is not what makes a journalist... thats fucking union guild mentality right there. besides, journalist is just someone who rewrites and analyzes other peoples reports and anyone can be a reporter just as anyone can be a journalist..
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Why does someone need a college degree in communications to be a journalist? I would think that the only prerequisites to being a good journalist would be the ability to research a subject and the ability to communicate your findings in a clear and informative manner.
I'm not going to pretend that every blogger is the equal to every journalist, but there are definitely some bloggers (of which few have communications degrees) who are superior to many "professional" members of the press. There are also blogg
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And like coders, many amateurs are so skilled that they become professionals, and many professionals retire or lose their jobs to become amateurs. It's a continuum, where your ability to move between the groups (be hired or fired) depends largely on merit, but also on a lot of other factors
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I blog and I never simply republish someone else's article (or some company's press release). That's lazy blogging. I always write my own articles in my own words. I'll pull from sources, yes, but those sources are credited and that never constitutes the majority of my writings. Most of the bloggers that I know work in a similar fashion.
I will freely admit, though, that the "copy-paste" folks give the rest of us a bad name. They're also the reason that PR folks think they can e-mail me with a press rel
Groklaw (Score:4, Informative)
Groklaw had the best journalistic coverage in the world of the SCO v. IBM case, but it's "just" a blog. There's no fine line where a blog stops being "what I feel" and reports hard news. Take MSNBC, it's 85% commentary, yet still considered news, and their standards, such as using facts and verifying things, aren't that high.
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Depends, there's investigative journalism and there's a whole lot of news that is simply stating widely known facts about current events, like everything from sports to events to accidents to new products to weather where one newspaper is 95% the same as the next. Other things are more work like food or travel guides, but where the amateur's subject matter knowledge far outshines the journalistic aspects. Yes, journalism is a skill but a lot of "easy" work they did before has been taking over by bloggers an
Disagree (Score:2)
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Unfortunately for every lousy journalist, there is a blogger who is even worse, telling you how to avoid rabies with homeopathic self-brain lobotomy or something. Seriously, the quality level of bloggers can get really bad [timecube.com].
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The problem here is that the range of bloggers is the same as the range of the population. There are people who are highly intelligent out there - even if they have no higher educational degree - and people who aren't. In "professional journalism", most of the bottom range is not hired at all or moved to the weirder tabloids. (In the latter case, they're free to print that Flight 370 was actually taken by aliens or some other garbage while we ignore them as "professional journalists.")
Unfortunately, "pro
All people are equal (Score:2)
And all people should demand freedom of speech, regardless of their profession, or lack thereof.
please mod up parent (Score:2)
Unequal, but also unquantifiable (Score:3)
Re:Unequal, but also unquantifiable (Score:5, Insightful)
we should instead think in terms of how can we verify what they're worth?
Agreed. I wrote this [billmcgonigle.com] five years ago and mostly still agree with it:
Re:Unequal, but also unquantifiable (Score:4, Insightful)
That just sets up a system where freedom can be revoked for anyone deemed to not have something worthwhile to say or who doesn't meet arbitrary professional standards. Everybody's "equal" but some are more equal than others isn't what the constitution was created for.
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Rather than asking whether they are equal, we should instead think in terms of how can we verify what they're worth? Is a source quantifiable?
Before we can verify, or evaluate or quantify, the subject matter must first be published. That right (to publish) is absolute, no matter who you are. Everybody also has the right to verify, and therefore the right to publish is necessary.
Question Answered (Score:3, Funny)
Kinda like this comment.
Reputation (Score:2)
The utility of news and is based on reputation. It does not matter any longer if reputation is based on the publisher or the author. Reputation can be easily researched by readers.
Facts and Accuracy (Score:2)
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Sure not too many people would be fact checking a news story, but if a writer provided sources then you or someone else could verify the information from time to time. It is a mistake to trust a news source just because you are familiar with the brand or the journalist.
Trust, but verified.
Even the best journalists get sloppy from time to time, brands get bought and sold and become a tool for some other agenda. The best written stories really do provide enough detail about where they are getting their info
Maybe it is old age and observation (Score:3)
Looking for a marketplace... (Score:2)
It seems that the missing link between blogging and conventional journalism could be a marketplace that enables bloggers to publish content in the mainstream media. Major media sites commonly link to blogs, and some bloggers do op-eds from time to time, but this cross-pollination seems to be the exception, not the rule. A Google Play-like marketplace in which bloggers sell their written pieces (or make them available for free), and from which news service purchases such pieces would eliminate the distinctio
Slashdot at its finest (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Slashdot at its finest (Score:4, Funny)
"Attempts to editing"??
Pot, meet Kettle....
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"Attempts to editing"??
Pot, meet Kettle....
I doubt Sarten-X has an editor budget.
Its more like: "Pot, meet Fully Staffed & Automated Modern Kitchen Here Take A Look At The Internet Controlled Toaster No It Only Toasts One Side I Don't Know Where The Butter Is Anyways Just Have Coffee Oops I Spilled It."
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I doubt Sarten-X has an editor budget.
Somewhere in here, there's a joke about FLOSS text editors and the ensuing flame wars, but I just can't think of a good way to phrase it.
I have a plugin that could help with that phrasing, but I don't remember how to run it...
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I doubt Sarten-X has an editor budget.
Somewhere in here, there's a joke about FLOSS text editors and the ensuing flame wars, but I just can't think of a good way to phrase it.
I have a plugin that could help with that phrasing, but I don't remember how to run it...
Just use emacs and you won't need a plugin.
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I doubt Sarten-X has an editor budget.
Somewhere in here, there's a joke about FLOSS text editors and the ensuing flame wars, but I just can't think of a good way to phrase it.
I have a plugin that could help with that phrasing, but I don't remember how to run it...
Well then, time to put in for an IT budget too. :)
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Aw, they fixed it. The summary originally read "which attempts to education journalists".
Professionals ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Furthermore, dedicated ammatuers who focus on a particular subject often have quicker and better coverage of news on that topic. Professional mass media news often over simplifies news, sometimes to the point of almost losing the story.
Then we've all seen the bias of professional news organizations. Freedom of the press is for whoever owns one. Look at how all mainstream mass media was completely silent about SOPA until the Internet forced the issue into the public eye. Then, the professional journalists all told whatever story their owners wanted us to hear.
I'm not saying that professional journalism is all bad. It's just not all good either. And the same for ammatuers. It is up to you to decide what news sources you trust. Some professionals have, and should rightfully so, not be given any trust.
We now have news channels that are more about info-tainment and the most fantastical splashy graphics than they are about real news. Closing down bureaus and getting rid of real investigative reporters because it is cheaper to just do talking heads? Then we also have professional news sources whose entire purpose is to promote a particular ideology. So maybe, increasingly, the only difference between the ammatuers and professionals is how big a budget they have? Now TV news anchors have to be fashion models. But in the past they had to be journalists who eventually earned the position of anchor. They weren't models, they just had to look okay.
So I find arguments about the goodness of professional news over news on the internet to be less than completely convincing.
Nice typo (Score:3)
which attempts to education journalists in how to process
We should attempts to education the editors in how to process a story!
What's changed though? (Score:3)
I've often thought about what differentiates a blogger from a journalist. To suggest that there is no difference is demeaning to journalists -- and yes, I know there are lots of those are hardly worthy of the name, but to just flatly equate the two is unjust to the professional, fact-checking variety that is supposed to be the standard.
Before the rise of the internet, there was no platform for any old person to put their opinion in print (digital or otherwise) and reach a broad audience. Sure, you could print up pamphlets and hand them out on street corners, but wide distribution was gated by publishers. We've removed a lot of middlemen between content producers and content consumers, and a lot of that is probably good. But one of the benefits (and problems in some cases) was that some of those middlemen provided filtering. It's great that we no longer have that filtering in one aspect; it's allowed a lot of things that the 'powers that be' judged uninteresting and turned out not to be so. But it also means that a lot of pure noise that was filtered out is now crowding out the signal in some cases.
Part of the problem journalism faces is that in order to compete on speed, they're skipping steps. There was a time when a juicy story was held back while they triple-checked it. That happens less & less because time-to-print (or broadcast, etc.) has become the defining metric. When you're competing with someone who doesn't check anything they put up, you start to look pretty follow-the-leaders when you post after fact-checking.
So while some of this is definitely a problem for journalists, namely how to stay relevant in a world of instant publication, a lot of this is our fault too. If we were willing to wait a bit, preferring immediately accuracy instead of immediate attention grabbing, it would give those who want to do things right the breathing room to verify. So long as we're all grabbing click bait the second its available, we're screaming loud and clear to the conglomerates that run our news media that its far more important to be first than accurate.
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When you're competing with someone who doesn't check anything they put up, you start to look pretty follow-the-leaders when you post after fact-checking
So maybe they're doing it wrong? Not every article has to be breaking to be worthy. You don't always have to be first. Remember, news aren't made by journalists, it's covered by them, and newsworthy stuff happens regardless of whether anyone covers it. The obsession with being first is putting the cart before the horse. Do proper fact-checking and be a better source of news, it's that simple. Oh, and dropping the obvious party affiliations would go a long way too.
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I completely agree, but you missed my follow-up point. They were already doing that more or less before the Internet era sprung on them (and to be fair, the 24-hour news channel didn't help). The problem is that those that kept doing that start losing ground to those that put the horse before the cart, as you put it. And that happened because we all tuned into the "Latest breaking something-we'll-check-later" News. I'm not saying they're blameless, but we definitely have a huge heaping share of the responsi
Great points! (Score:3)
I think you're absolutely right about the trend in news shifting towards immediacy vs. verification of content. Maybe professional journalism has a marketing problem, in that regard? I think the general public, especially in the "Internet age" where everything seems to be available at the click of a mouse, might need reminders of the value of fact-checked, accurate news reporting?
Really, there's no true need to be first, if doing so means only having part of the story, or an inaccurate one. The *perceived
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I think you're right that perception is a big problem. It would be really, really helpful if there was some objective way to measure how rarely a news source gets stuff wrong. Kind of like a Golden Glove for news. If news organizations could compete for that instead of their version of "First post!", it could only be better.
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I've often thought about what differentiates a blogger from a journalist. To suggest that there is no difference is demeaning to journalists -- and yes, I know there are lots of those are hardly worthy of the name, but to just flatly equate the two is unjust to the professional, fact-checking variety that is supposed to be the standard.
Before the rise of the internet, there was no platform for any old person to put their opinion in print (digital or otherwise) and reach a broad audience. Sure, you could print up pamphlets and hand them out on street corners, but wide distribution was gated by publishers. We've removed a lot of middlemen between content producers and content consumers, and a lot of that is probably good. But one of the benefits (and problems in some cases) was that some of those middlemen provided filtering. It's great that we no longer have that filtering in one aspect; it's allowed a lot of things that the 'powers that be' judged uninteresting and turned out not to be so. But it also means that a lot of pure noise that was filtered out is now crowding out the signal in some cases.
Part of the problem journalism faces is that in order to compete on speed, they're skipping steps. There was a time when a juicy story was held back while they triple-checked it. That happens less & less because time-to-print (or broadcast, etc.) has become the defining metric. When you're competing with someone who doesn't check anything they put up, you start to look pretty follow-the-leaders when you post after fact-checking.
So while some of this is definitely a problem for journalists, namely how to stay relevant in a world of instant publication, a lot of this is our fault too. If we were willing to wait a bit, preferring immediately accuracy instead of immediate attention grabbing, it would give those who want to do things right the breathing room to verify. So long as we're all grabbing click bait the second its available, we're screaming loud and clear to the conglomerates that run our news media that its far more important to be first than accurate.
1 vote for: Bloggers + Snopes > Journalism.
Journalists usually have a hidden agenda... (Score:2)
...for evidence of this, just look at how the recent Crimea issue has been handled.
No one raised a finger when Kosovo was carving itself out of Yugoslavia. No body is asking the tough questions. No body from the big media houses sees the USA's double standards...
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And there's your difference. Kosovo carved *itself* out of Yugoslavia. *Russia* carved the Crimea out of Ukraine.
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And there's your difference. Kosovo carved *itself* out of Yugoslavia. *Russia* carved the Crimea out of Ukraine.
No! You lie! The Crimean people [democratically] voted to join Russia.
Want a link? Here you go. [bbc.com]
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Once they were occupied by Russian troops, you better believe they'd vote to join Russia. I'd vote to join Russia too if I had a Russian soldier standing next to me. Kosovo, of course, wasn't occupied by any foreign troops.
Bloggers beat journalists, because mainstream "jou (Score:3)
It's not that bloggers are great, but what passes for journalism in the USA is little more than a bad joke. Fact checking? Broad knowledge of the world? Deep thought? When was the last time you saw any of that from a "professional" mainstream media journalist? Even the Economist has become hopelessly myopic and superficial.
That's not the only reason. Intellectually, most of the journalism majors I met in college were fighting it out with education majors for last place. Try and explain something as complex as resource depletion or peak oil, and their heads looked like they'd explode.
Consequently I find that I read bloggers with great enthusiasm (e.g. nakedcapitalism.com), while simply rolling my eyes at the "news" on MSNBC, Fox or NPR.
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Freedom of "The Press" (Score:4, Informative)
A lot of people (most people, actually) tend to believe that the usage of the term in the First Amendment implies the "fourth estate," a characterization of the 'professional' journalistic media; however, according to etymonline.com, [etymonline.com] the term "the press" was not used in reference to professional journalistic endeavors (i.e., the 'fourth estate') until the mid-1820's, long after the Constitution was written and ratified. Prior to that, the term "press" in literary reference was commonly accepted to mean the printing press.
Thus, it stands to reason that the freedom our founding fathers were protecting in the First Amendment is not the freedom of the fourth estate, but rather the freedom of the common man to disseminate information freely, be it in blog, newspaper, or other format.
Al Jazeera did a story on this. (Score:3)
Yes, they are (Score:3)
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Many "Journalists" no longer fact check their stories before they are published. IMHO that makes them no different than a blogger. At least with a blogger, it's implied that whatever they post is their opinion, with journalists, it's implied that they're supposed to be impartial.
However, Journalists have *never* been 100% objective, at a minimum there has always been some self-censorship and tacit agreements with governments, etc. (For example, FDR was never shown in press pictures in his w
ha? (Score:2)
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Short answer: Yes (Score:2)
Can't be too careful (Score:2)
No. (Score:2)
Not all writers are journalists.
Those we know as journalists have editors, one-time or current peers, more experienced, who can tell them when they're running afoul of what good journalism is.
Those we know as bloggers have nothing more than their own judgement to guide them, which is why journalists grew editors.
Perhaps someday the two will merge, hopefully by bloggers stepping up, and not by journalists stepping down.
Kinda like in science, where you don't get to just throw up any old idea and call it scien
Free Speech For All Citizens (Score:2)
Unfortunately, very often facts are never verified, and dogma-truths (religionpolitics) are very often regurgitated by fools, bigots, and frauds.
I wish journalist, clergy, and politicians could be held to a higher standard, but as broadcast/print news, US, EU, RU, CN politicians, and all religions globally prove there is no higher calling than bullsh_t power.
IOW: Holding Citizens/bloggers to any standard for speech/information would be wrong and draconian. Holding journalist, scientist, businesses, clergy,
The first amendment is a right, not a priviledge (Score:2)
30 years of journalism experience in 30 seconds (Score:3)
As someone who made a modest living for 30 years as a "journalist" (or whatever you want to call me), I can summarize the most important thing I learned in 30 seconds:
Every time you attack someone, always call him to get his side.
(Variation 1: Every time you write something that you strongly believe, always call somebody on the other side to find out why they disagree with you.)
That's it. If you follow that rule, you'll always get a decent story.
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No, I'm not saying that I try to make each side look equally valid.
I'm saying that I try to let each side make their best case, and let my readers decide.
I'm writing for people who are intelligent enough to know how to evaluate both sides of an argument and come to their own conclusions.
Sometimes it's obvious that one side is lying. Sometimes it's too close to call.
For example, when I was writing about needle exchange programs for IV drug users, I had a stack of well-designed studies published in major medi
Yes (Score:2)
Because what passes for "journalism" today is no better than a random blogger. No research done, and basically 100% opinion pieces.
YES! In the USA especially. (Score:2)
I frankly feel insulted when these new readers and lousy reporters call themselves "journalists." Bloggers don't know better so I don't hold it against them. One should be required to have a degree to earn the title Journalist. Just as a garbage handler should not be allowed to degrade Engineers by calling themselves sanitation engineers.
In Terms of Free Speech, Yes; Quality, Maybe Not (Score:2)
The question should focus specifically on quality, not freedom. That is, bloggers, journalists, pamphleteers and tinfoil-hat-wearing-street-corner-ranting loonies have the same freedom to report what they consider to be news. Governments, and especially the courts, should scrupulously avoid anointing any group as "the Press" or claiming one group or another has a more fundamental free speech right. The press are and always have been made up of the people.
Quality, however, is another matter. We might expect
Under the law..... (Score:2)
In the Unverified Digital World, Are Journalists and Bloggers Equal?
Under the law, they should be. They are citizens. There should be no special rights extended to anyone based on their profession.
It depends.... (Score:3)
Are journalists and marketing directors equal? Are journalists and advertisers equal? After all, they all produce digital copy to inform the public. OTOH, if there is something that separates journalists from these other information producing groups, then there is probably something that also separates them from your run of the mill bloggers.
As to what that something may be, I will leave to others to determine.
Well it's rather obvious (Score:2)
In the Unverified Digital World, Are Journalists and Bloggers Equal?
Well, I think we have a document on that subject around here somewhere... oh yea, here it is:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Enough said.
past vs. present (Score:2)
There used to be real journalism done by real journalists, but thanks to everyone wanting everything on the cheap and mostly due to a huge sell-out by the media who jumped on the "advertisement will pay for everything" bandwaggon long before the Internet did, that is rapidly going the way of the Dodo bird.
The problem is that selling out to advertisement means quality doesn't matter anymore, eyeballs do. A carefully researched, well-balanced article usually doesn't draw as many eyes as some bullshit attentio
Re: (Score:2)
Or not. There were things, sometimes important, that "real journalists" just didn't cover, or slanted heavily. Of course, since most people didn't have other sources, they perceived the pros as getting things mostly right and covering most of what they needed to know.
Talk to somebody who had inside information on something and watched the journalism about it. My first experience was in a teachers' strike Mom participated in. It was enlightenin
Re: (Score:2)
Or not. There were things, sometimes important, that "real journalists" just didn't cover, or slanted heavily
Oh please. Just because it wasn't 110% perfect doesn't mean it wasn't good. That's a strawman.
Of course mass media has its own troubles and problems and bias and issues. But it's gone downhill from there quite a lot.
Maybe journalists should up their game? (Score:2)
Considering the abysmal lack of fact-checking on even the simplest of stories, the amount of content that is obviously just pandered from one web site to the next by so-called professional journalists, the number of images and stories that have been discovered to be (if not completely manufactured) at least heavily edited in favor of a political viewpoint...well, if people are having a hard time distinguishing "journalists" from "dipshit with a website and a viewpoint", I'd say journalists have only themsel
Re:Liberals are still butthurt... (Score:4, Insightful)
No. People object to the idea that everything is a "narrative".
Journalism is no longer about facts. It's just another form of fiction. This is what the fixation over "narrative" has done to journalism. Meanwhile, so-called professionals still attempt to pretend that they are objective.
The old school party rags were at least honest about their bias.
Re: (Score:2)
A blogger can be anyone with an easily readable writing style, who provides the readers with quips, thoughts, personal observations, anecdotes, opinions and beliefs.
But that holds true also for the journalistic formats called "editorial" or "column".
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It all comes down to which of your sources has interests most aligned with your own.
And thus we have people of each ideology living in their own worlds due to the echo chambers that form. Ironic how truth has become a lost cause in the age of information.