Slashdot Mirror
Is Blogging Journalism?
An anonymous reader writes "In the wake of the judge's refusal to extend journalist protections to Think Secret in its case against Apple, the Net is abuzz with commentaries coming to its defense. MacInTouch points to three of them, from CNET's Declan McCullagh, MP3 Newswire's Richard Menta and grassroots journalism pundit Dan Gillmor. All agree that Apple went too far with its case and question the court's decision that Web journalists don't count."
See Professor Susan Crawford's piece on this on her blog where she argues the outcome (if not the reasoning) of the Judge's ruling was correct... http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/ 3/6/404732.html
Why not the oposite? Considering how little research that most people put into their blogs I would definitely not consider it a form of journalism.
Wait. Journalists still research their articles?
Blogging is just a medium through which to deliver content. Like any kind of writing, it can be good, or it can be crap.
It seems to me that while most people don't research their blogs there are some that do.
The same is true for journalists...most are rather crappy but the precious few that do their job well are those who define their job field.
In this way bloggers are in fact journalists, albeit unpaid, just some are better than others.
Is the New York Times journalism? Yep. (usually at least ;)
Is the Star paper that you can pick up in your supermaket journalism? No.
Both are on paper media. The media has nothing to do with it. It's all about the quality.
99% of blogs are crap, but there are certain ones that I would say certainly are journalism.
the judge's refusal to extend journalist protections to Think Secret
Uh... last I checked, US courts do not recognize the notion that a journalist has the right to refuse to disclose a confidential source. More than one reporter has been thrown in jail for contempt of court over this. So, I'm not real clear here how Think Secret's treatment is any different than what a normal journalist would get?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
"Is the New York Times journalism? Yep. (usually at least ;)
Is the Star paper that you can pick up in your supermaket journalism? No.
Both are on paper media. The media has nothing to do with it. It's all about the quality."
To add to you point:
I've seen many comments here and in TFAs to the effect of, "What if the New York Times had published those leaks? There'd be no lawsuit."
That's disinginous at best and stupid at worst. The New York Times would never had published the leak. An editor would have asked the reporter who their source was, and if it was an Apple insider, would have asked if the insider was covered by an NDA.
That's because the New York Times actually engages in journalism.
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I think a major factor that determines journalism is accountability.
Blogs just aren't as accountable as a major commercial entity like a magazine or newspaper. Just look at Slashdot. It posts flat-out inaccurate and wrong information all the time as front page news articles. But it's not really news, and the editors aren't journalists. They're just posting user-submitted blocks of text with links to other sites, often without vetting the information or even seeing if it was posted already.
If Slashdot was a print magazine, I guarantee facts would get checked a lot more often. But the Internet is seen as a responsibility-less place with no rules, so the attitude is much more lax.
Drudge posts blaring headlines and then edits them 30 minutes later when they turn out to be wrong. He posted that the Oscars had come "back from the dead" in ratings, and then an hour later I checked the site to see a giant headline claiming that ratings had been the lowest in five years. There was no mention of the change.
It's so easy to set up a webserver and post anything. That's why they are not considered journalists. When you're employed by a real news organization, there is a level of accountability and standards that must be met, or you will be fired. That accountability to someone isn't there when you're in your underwear and running your own server to post what you want.
The UCLA/Stanford study was very well done, and measured "bias" as the frequency with which left wing vs right wing sources (such as think tanks) were cited. It was a very objective way to measure bias, if not necessarily what is commonly meant.
Fox news was right of center, but not too far. The PBS News Hour was the most balanced. ABC and NBC were left of center, but not too far. CBS was pretty far to the left.
Fox News is very comercially sucessful because it is the only TV news outlet with a right wing bias. Market research found that a *majority* of Americans thought the existing news at the time had a bias to the left, so creating a station with some bias to the right was an excellent marketing decision: provide what the majority of viewers want to see, and be the only outlet doing so.
That doesn't, by itself, mean the reporting on Fox News is any better or worse than ABC or NBC, or any more biased, just well targeted to the largest demographic in its direction of bias. Personally, I think all the 24-hour news chanels are terrible, as there's usually a lot less news than they have hours to fill, so you get mostly low-quality filler.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.