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Once more for the record… Blogging is not journalism!!

I get very frustrated with the often heard claim that blogs in general should be treated as newspapers and every blogger as an amateur journalist. Such misguided talk most often emanates from the confused, from those ignorant of the technical nature of the Web in particular and the Internet in general, and from those seeking to increase legislative control over online content. As far as I am concerned, people who believe that blogging is a form of journalism have failed to grasp the essence of the phenomenon and of the network and technology that facilitates it.

I’m not denying that some blogs out there do indeed function as online news sources, and that the posts and behaviour of some amateur bloggers effectively makes them ‘journalists’ (and then there are the professional bloggers of course). But just as love is but one of many types of emotion, so being a dedicated news source is but one of many possible roles of a blog, and let’s face it, only a tiny minority of sites classed as blogs actually break any original news. In fact, most, like mine, break mostly wind.

Besides, what actually counts as ‘original news’? I think we would all agree that a blogger posting a story about a political scandal, before any other news source had done so, would effectively be breaking news. But what about a blogger reporting in real time on a fire she can see from her office window? What about a blogger reporting a reduction in the prices charged for Ford cars on a local garage forecourt? What about a blogger who writes predominantly about her pop idols, her pets, and her life at school, is she a journalist too and should her postings ever be regulated by a code of ethics, the failure to obey which could result in some kind of punitive sanction (as some who favour regulation seem to be building up to suggest)?

Just to continue the reduction to absurdity, there’s also the duration problem. Even if a blogger does break a real news story (assuming, of course, that criteria is laid down to distinguish between real news and non-real news) what is his status if he only breaks one such story a year, or if he only ever publishes a single ‘real’ news item? Is he a journalist only while he writes the post, or does he remain so for the duration that the post is publicly viewable on his website? When he goes back to more mundane posts, such as those about the latest gadget he’s purchased, or about how unreliable he found the Royal Mail to be over the Christmas period, would he still be classed as a journalist?

OK, enough. I’m sure you get my my point. The whole ‘blogging is journalism’ thing is IMO nonsense, caused simply by lack of familiarity with and understanding of both the role and uses of blogs themselves and also of the nature of the medium that carries them.