Blogs vs Newspapers
I’ve just about had enough of this journalists vs. bloggers argument. It goes on and on and on. I thought that it was restricted to the NST in Malaysia but I see that the Star has also taken up on the lead, albeit more subtlely.
I read this article from the Star newspaper’s InTech pullout this evening and it got me annoyed. It is underpinned by so many assumptions that in my view are not false, or misleading at best. It is also judgemental - made even before the writers started on the article, in my view - of the sort that I unsuccessfully argued in this earlier meandering post. (Contrast the Star’s article with this one published by Singapore’s Straits Times on the same day - you need to register - free - and sign in to read. Or this one published by the Guardian in the UK, also on the same day. And there’s this published by the BBC.)
Let’s get this out of the way.
(1) Bloggers are not journalists. That’s why they are called “bloggers” and journalists “journalists”.
(2) In general, bloggers do not start blogs with the raison d’etre of providing news. Some, in the course of their existence, may do, but not all and certainly not always. The primary purpose of newspapers on the other hand is to provide news, though I’d grant that’s not their only raison d’etre but it is their primary one.
(3) Journalists are paid to write. Bloggers generally do it for free.
(4) Points (1), (2) and (3) lead me to conclude that bloggers cannot be held to the same standards as journalists. That’s not to say that bloggers do not have to uphold certain standards. It’s just that the standards are different though let’s not go into the intractable argument here of just what those standards should be. Any reasonable reader should understand that blogs should be read from a certain perspective with certain caveats in mind. Similarly for newspapers.
(5) Yes, blogs may provide personal accounts of events rather than “news”, or the bigger picture, or in depth analyses but that in itself does not discount the validity and social relevance of blogs. They have a function and purpose in society. Just because they are personal stories does not mean that they are less important, less meaningful, or less valid than “news” - many an academic, and political, career have been built on the analyses of these intimate stories - just ask any anthropologist or sociologist. Do not forget the politicians who spend half their lives trying to understand and win over the “common” person.
(6) Following on from point (5), just because a writer is a journalist it does not make him/her the final arbiter on a subject matter. If I wanted an in-depth and well researched argument, I might read an academic thesis and not a newspaper article. The point really is that each type of writing has a place in our world. As I argued previously, we should accept that fact and let it be. Comparing journalism with blogging is like comparing chickens with eggs. Of course, if a journalist wants to be an egg, I can’t stop him/her. But I must then infer that s/he must have passed his/her sell-by date.
(7) Finally, and this is the “constructivist” me speaking, what is construed as “news” is socially constructed. That argument in itself should point to the self-serving and defensive nature of the article published in InTech. In the Malaysian context, it’s a bit rich for the Malaysian newspapers to talk about the “credibility gap”.
And let’s hope, that’s that.
Posted on December 31st, 2004 by jl
Filed under: Interesting Reads | 3 Comments »
