Bloggers are not jepordizing journalism
The world of journalism is not being hurt by all these blogs floating around on the Internet.
Granted, people who are not journalists write most of these blogs, but most readers know that. People don’t read blogs to find out what’s going on in the news, they read blogs to find out what a certain person thinks about what’s going on in the news. It doesn’t matter whether that person is their best friend or some celebrity whom they admire, most people know that blogs are merely the opinion of the blogger.
I’ll use Dallas Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban as an example. He has a blog Web site that discusses several issues not limited to basketball. Some of his other topics include the YouTube lawsuit, the NBC/NewsCorp video venture and the future of TV programming. I don’t think very many people see Cuban as a journalist. He is a businessman with enough time on his hands to write a blog and he may or may not know what he’s talking about. Think of it this way: If Cuban was meant to be taken seriously, wouldn’t the San Antonio Spurs have taken legal action against him when he insulted individual Spurs players, Spurs fans and even a dirty river in San Antonio during the Spurs and Mavericks 2006 playoff series?
If there is a problem with blogging, it is people who read blogs as if they are factual information published by a credible source. Reading blogs this way will probably lead to the reader being misinformed, but that is not the fault of the blogger. Even the best newspaper columnist’s stories should not be read as fact. It is only one man or woman’s opinion based on fact. Most blogger’s stories should be taken with a grain of salt because their ideas aren’t necessarily based on fact.
Poynter’s Steve Outing mentions how bloggers and journalists can learn from each other. This is true. Bloggers can learn better reporting from journalists, and journalists can learn how to appeal to a wider audience from bloggers. If bloggers and journalists make an honest attempt to learn from one another, both of these fields will be better in the long run.
The most important thing that bloggers have to learn from journalists is editing. Every published work needs to have at least one experienced editor proofread it before sending it to the public.
The bottom line is that blogs can be an attractive thing to read and to write, but until journalists decide to sit at home and write blogs about news instead of being employed by a credible publication, blogs are not harming journalism whatsoever. So let the bloggers have their fun.
Here is Steve Outing's article on blogging
Poynter
Here is Mark Cuban's blog site
Maverick
Granted, people who are not journalists write most of these blogs, but most readers know that. People don’t read blogs to find out what’s going on in the news, they read blogs to find out what a certain person thinks about what’s going on in the news. It doesn’t matter whether that person is their best friend or some celebrity whom they admire, most people know that blogs are merely the opinion of the blogger.
I’ll use Dallas Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban as an example. He has a blog Web site that discusses several issues not limited to basketball. Some of his other topics include the YouTube lawsuit, the NBC/NewsCorp video venture and the future of TV programming. I don’t think very many people see Cuban as a journalist. He is a businessman with enough time on his hands to write a blog and he may or may not know what he’s talking about. Think of it this way: If Cuban was meant to be taken seriously, wouldn’t the San Antonio Spurs have taken legal action against him when he insulted individual Spurs players, Spurs fans and even a dirty river in San Antonio during the Spurs and Mavericks 2006 playoff series?
If there is a problem with blogging, it is people who read blogs as if they are factual information published by a credible source. Reading blogs this way will probably lead to the reader being misinformed, but that is not the fault of the blogger. Even the best newspaper columnist’s stories should not be read as fact. It is only one man or woman’s opinion based on fact. Most blogger’s stories should be taken with a grain of salt because their ideas aren’t necessarily based on fact.
Poynter’s Steve Outing mentions how bloggers and journalists can learn from each other. This is true. Bloggers can learn better reporting from journalists, and journalists can learn how to appeal to a wider audience from bloggers. If bloggers and journalists make an honest attempt to learn from one another, both of these fields will be better in the long run.
The most important thing that bloggers have to learn from journalists is editing. Every published work needs to have at least one experienced editor proofread it before sending it to the public.
The bottom line is that blogs can be an attractive thing to read and to write, but until journalists decide to sit at home and write blogs about news instead of being employed by a credible publication, blogs are not harming journalism whatsoever. So let the bloggers have their fun.
Here is Steve Outing's article on blogging
Poynter
Here is Mark Cuban's blog site
Maverick
posted by HoopBloggerJohnson at
9:26 AM
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