Who is better? Blogger or Journalist - this is not this post about. This post is about who is the 'best' out of the two. The blogger vs. journalist debate has been going on for quite sometime and probably ever will. I am an infrequent and casual blogger and still my opinions are not biased.
I have great respect for reporters and journalists (though not all of them). It is obvious that
bloggers evolved from journalists. Journalists have been existing long before the internet and digital age.
I am more famililar with blogs and I do feel most of the bloggers are not biased (not all). Bloggers have the habit of writing what the news is from a reader's perspective - as it is mostly. Journalists do have a tendency to be biased (there are good ones too) on what they write because they do not want to create unwanted feedback. They are very cautious.
The bloggers on the contrary never mind about the positive or negative feedback they get on what they write. Journalists write down articles only to be read by the public. Journalists never get any reader's views on their articles. They analyze and write the article keeping in mind who are involved and how to write it out in a professional manner (extrinsic factors). The blogger on the other hand keys words straight from his heart (heart usually speaks the truth) - and
it is definitely amateurish but good.
I Googled and came across a study which I would like to share. PR Week and PR Newswire in its study done in mid-2010 came out with a fact that 52% percent of bloggers considered themselves to be journalists. This shows bloggers are not at all casual in what they do even though they sit and write from home. Bloggers consider themselves to be journalists because they understand their responsibility in bringing out real facts. Most bloggers are more famous than journalists who cover news from the same stream. Political views of certain influential bloggers are gaining great momentum lately.
Let us dig a little about technology news now. Basically, the way people search for news and reviews have changed lately. Technology magazines just cover the specifications of a specific product. Bloggers do a detailed review of a product and key down the pros and cons from a user perspective. Most of the buying decisions are based on reviews on blogs rather than articles on magazines or newspapers. This means bloggers have more influence on the consumers than technical writers and journalists.
Bloggers spread the news much faster than their main stream media counterparts. Once a news hits on a specific blog - we could find it being exploding in Twitter, Facebook and other major social medias.
The blogosphere also brings diverse opinions (people-centric) on the same topic. In the case of journalists, mixed opinions can be found (biased to either party involved in the news) very rare. This is because
main stream medias are owned by influential persons who have biased views (this is purely my perspective - correct me if I am wrong).
Blogs are taking over main stream media and this has led to all major main stream medias to have a number of dedicated blogs written by eminent journalists and bloggers. If a journalist writes on a blog it is a news article on a blog - not a big change. These main stream media companies should hire fresh talent available in the blogosphere who would be able to create unique content which would not reflect the news article. Most mainstream media blogs have blog posts which reflect their news article (Mirror).
This post is not intended against journalists. There are lot of good journalists around and they always will. There are reporters and journalists who are not biased and bring truth the way it is.
They are persistent and determined to bring the truth and in order to bring it out they work in unpleasant and life threatening environments (journalists in conflict zones). Internet is the lifeline of this century where people with diverse opinions connect and you cannot give a news based on journalism ethics - you have to understand the audience and transform.
Journalists and bloggers are doing the same thing but in different formats but their target is the audience.
Journalists have a "PRESS PASS" and bloggers have a "BLOG PASS." The first one is physical and hard to get while the latter one is a piece of cake. You can easily start a blog on Blogspot, TypePad, WordPress and more. Now, who is the best? both, because they both are one (almost except method of exporting the news).
I have seen credible, reasonable, misleading (3 major types) of journalists. Likewise, I have also come across honest, reasonable, doubtful and misleading bloggers. So where are we now? Bloggers Vs. Journalists again.
