Is blogging a form of Journalism?

This blog is on a topic close to our hearts, as Dom is an experienced blogger and I have a background in Journalism. A blog is described as being a type or part of a website that is written and maintained by an individual with regular posts which can be discussion on a particular topic, current news event or simply a series of journal entries. Another form is microblogging, which involves much shorter posts or updates, like Twitter. Blogging is a collection of one or several authors own thoughts, opinions, musings or personal day-to-day experiences. Bloggers may choose to support the opinions by linking to relevant research articles, other blogs or current news stories.

A journalist collects factual information on current events, trends, people and pressing issues and is expected to report on them in an unbiased and objective way for the mass media; newspapers, radio, broadcast and magazines.

One of the key differences between the two is the level of accountability. A journalist works to codes of conduct and best practices, and can face sanctions such as libel or defamation if they get it wrong. A blogger is expressing an opinion, and so works to a lesser degree of formality and accountability.

The different levels of accountability can work in accord or against the content. A blogger can raise issues or thoughts that may be controversial, and so can get away with bringing these to the public's attention without necessarily worrying about legal implications of their work. A journalist, while having to substantiate their claims, is more constrained in the topics they are able to raise.

A blogger is much freer to openly criticise a story. I think this is one of the key differences between blogging and journalism; the freedom to openly criticise without fear of being held accountable.

There is much disagreement within the industry about whether blogging can constitute a form of journalism. Dr. Ben Goldacre is a British doctor, journalist, and author of The Guardian’s weekly ‘Bad Science’ column. An article on Jounalism.co.uk shows a video he made about ‘Bad Science’, he expressed his thoughts on media reliability: “..blogs are potentially more reliable than mainstream media ever was - mainly because you can check for each individual blog author, how credible they are, because bloggers link to primary resources…” Goldacre feels that bloggers are more reliable than mainstream media, because bloggers will express their honest opinion on an issue and then link to someone else’s article to back it up. He feels that journalists can sometimes “go out of their way” to disguise where their facts have come from.

Scott Karp wrote a post on his blog ‘Publishing 2.0’ arguing that a blog is merely a content management system (CMS) and is revolutionary because it is [mainly] free and available for anyone to publish content on. Karp states that if a blog is used by a journalist, for example if a Journalist for The Times has their own featured blog, then yes – blogging is a form of journalism. Karp also coined the phrase ‘Link Journalism’ in 2008. This is a form of collaborative journalism in which the author of a news story provides external links within the story’s text to other articles or sources on the Internet. These links are meant to complement, enhance or add context to the original reporting – something which many bloggers do to back up their own opinions, thoughts and arguments.

Internet entrepreneur Chris Pirillo makes a very clear differentiation between journalism and blogging on his personal blog. He believes that blogging is not a form of journalism, but that it is a “newer type of writing style.” His main train of thought for this is that the only difference between them is content. He believes that bloggers and journalists are both there to produce content, but that “bloggers write because they want to. Journalists write to get paid, because it is their job.” He also makes a very valid point that bloggers write about what they know, feel and think about a topic, but journalists will [usually] get told what to right about and are supposed to support this with relevant and accurate facts.

A fundamental point to keep in mind is that anyone can go online and set up a blog using platforms such as Blogger or WordPress without having any previous experience of blogging or indeed writing. Journalists, however, will have some form of training behind them, whether this is a degree, NUJ (National Union of Journalists)training or having worked as a junior reporter after leaving school. So in my opinion and drawing on my own personal experience, I would have to agree with Chris Pirillo; I think that blogging is not a form of journalism, although it can be used by journalists in a similar way to a column, blogging is its own definitive type of writing style. Being trained in journalism and working in PR, I have found it difficult to make the changeover from journalist to blogger. Then again, it depends on people’s own definitions of journalists and bloggers.