The Importance of Blogging in Journalism Today
By David Stent
Journalism is heading into a new era, an unprecedented one
that has allowed anybody with even the shoddiest of writing abilities to become
part of the profession. The causation of this is the ‘web log’ or ‘blog’.
Originally these were daily diaries of individuals posted on the internet for
strangers to read, enjoy and critique, now they serve a much greater purpose as
a source of information to quite possibly hundreds of millions of people.
The dying generation of journalists has largely fobbed blogs
off as ‘too common’ or ‘journalism without merit’. Yet most writers under the
50 barrier have quickly had to accept this form of writing, as it has become an
essential tool of the writer, both amateur and professional, of connecting with
their audiences.
Bill Thompson blogged for the BBC in 2005 on this exact
notion, saying this seven years ago is some great foresight in this
ever-evolving online landscape. "The real point of getting a journalist
blogging at this early stage in his or her career is that the bloggers, in all
their variety, with all their different skills and abilities and interests and
biases, are reshaping the world in which professional journalists operate just
as much as the telephone shook up the profession in the first half of the 20th
Century."
With the decline of the traditional media, blogs have seen
their role in supplying information, news and otherwise, increase exponentially
over the last few years. This is not to say the traditional media is dead, far
from it. In 2010 99% of links
in blogs came from newspapers and broadcast outlets, with just 1% of original
reporting. Of that 99%, 4 media outlets; BBC, CNN, New York Times and the
Washington Post accounted for 80% of all links from those blogs. It is evident
therefore that a reliance on traditional media outlets for information is still
hugely prevalent.
The issue
that print media has is that they do not have the accessibility, interactivity
and have to compete with polarizing production costs. Bloggers can produce
content absolutely free of charge whereas news outlets must pay many people
decent salaries to produce the information that they do. It is a battle that
they may not be able to win in the long term.
Surely
though an individual blog cannot have the same devastating impact as a story
from a major media outlet can? What can the words of one unknown, lone blogger
do to effect change in the minds in many? The answer is a lot, and companies
are weary now to this fact, employing divisions of people just to handle their
online presence and reputation. Another BBC blog highlighted one such situation
in the early days of blogging and Internet activism back in 2005. A blogger,
Jeff Jarvis, had received bad customer service from Dell Computers and he proceeded
to blog about his bad feelings. His impact was somewhat severe and this
incident is now used as a template in how to avoid such events.
A
journalist needs to blog, simple as that. A good, well-kept blog can act as a curriculum
vitae, a showcase of their talents. It can also pull audiences to their
writings in print format. For a journalist not to embrace such an easy tool
that can only help them, would be to shoot themselves in the proverbial foot.
Sources:
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