Yep. After almost 10 months of being dormant, I'm back. For those of you who actually noticed I was gone... thanks! But to be more realistic, I'm pretty sure there wasn't a huge void left in any of your lives.
So what's drawn me back in? For starters, I was starting to feel embarrassed that I consider myself a fairly innovative communications professional, yet I couldn't even manage to update my blog. Secondly, I was being shamed by the the aptly titled "It Ain't Called Olds... It's Called News..." Uh... yeah. The blog by that name was getting old. Ooops... Lastly, and probably most importantly, I'm teaching a writing class for non-news majors in the School of Media and Strategic Communications at OSU. Part of the their curriculum is to keep a blog for the semester. And can I really ask them to do something I'm not willing to commit myself to? I think not!
So for my first revived blog post I would like to expand upon a debate that one of my students and I had recently in class: Are bloggers journalists? In a nutshell, I said no and he said yes.
Our staunch difference of opinion left me questioning my own views though. Have I been wrong to unequivocally deny that bloggers are, indeed, journalists?
In researching the topic, it's a debate that's been happening since at least 2005, noted here:
http://archive.pressthink.org/2005/01/21/berk_essy.html
My student actually blogged about this as well, and here is his take on things:
http://okedition.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/bloggerism/
My main point of contention is that there isn't a standard code of ethics for bloggers, and they're usually a one-man show. So where are their checks and balances? Others may say that keeps them more honest, because there isn't a management structure concerned with selling ad revenue. But recently, I was informed that some bloggers sell their space in return for coverage. If that's not the anti-journalist, I'm not sure what is.
So what do you think? Are bloggers journalists?
