What is the difference between a Journalist and a Blogger?
For many, it is an issue of credibility. There’s certainly no magic dust that makes the keyboard of one shine with dignity and truth. And there’s very little difference between pixels and pulp. The truth on your screen is still truer than a lie in paper. But ask someone to define it for you objectively, and often they can’t.
There’s also a high degree of suspicion about who is pulling the strings. A newspaper or TV station has a defined ownership, whereas the new Culture of the Ad Hominem will fiercely attack a blogger for writing “opinions.” Since there’s no means of proving a negative, you can never show someone else that you’re not on a secret payroll.
But the biggest Trust Factor between the realms of Big-J Journalism and Blogging is credibility over time.
If someone tried replicating the New York Times today, starting from whole cloth, there would be a major debate about the editorial bent, and who is financing this, and why are they doing it, and what’s the agenda?
What the Times and the Post and NBC and other outlets have going for them are a track record. Not a single individual working for those outlets was there at the founding. And the rookie writer who lands a story on the front page is rarely questioned for being “new,” because he is trafficking on the inherited reputation of others who came before.
Inherited Integrity
Likewise, consider someone who builds an individual reputation for solid reporting, balance and ethics. That person could quit tomorrow, start a blog (or an Online News Property,) and be taken seriously.
There is no magic to the medium. There is no miracle that elevates some outlets over others, other than Reputation, or credibility over time. And there is not a single journalist working today – not one – that earned that status all on his or her own.
This long-established engine that bestowed credibility is failing under the strains of antiquated business models. There are fewer people doing the work, and therefore fewer basking in that golden glow of approval. Additionally, the tools of publishing are now affordable enough for a young writer to develop an audience and prove expertise outside the traditional path. They most likely aren’t even trying to become journalists, but if they gather readers by providing timely information and context within a sphere of influence, then what would you call them?
- If they produce the same information as a journalist
- If they write about the same topics as a journalist
- If people depend on them for information…
…then existentially speaking, why are they just bloggers?
And if they work for an entity that gives that Golden Glow of Journalism, and just happen to publish to a blog…?
The Problem Fixes Itself
What we haven’t defined is how we (as society) will classify which of the bloggers are journalists and which are blowhards.
And we won’t have to.
Time will fix that.
A guy who blogs on technology for eight years, and has a great reputation for being first with accurate and important information, and is approached by others to “break news”… what is he again?
He’s a journalist who did something you couldn’t do a few years ago.
He made his own Golden Glow.
But keeping that Glow will require diligence to reputation, and avoiding the traps of conflict of interest in our Ad Hominem-happy culture.
They can be one in the same depending on how a reader considers the information they provide them with. Me? I’m a blogger. Folks like yourself, Wade Kwon, John Archibald and others are what I consider to be Journalists. Your cred is what gets you that status. It’s not one that you obtained easily either, I might add. So, in essence, your experience and the fact that folks seem to trust what you have to say puts you in the Journalist category IMHO.
As I think you’re implying, the labels are increasingly meaningless. The point is, if a person or entity becomes a reliable and accurate source of content over time, then people will vote with their eyeballs and that person/entity will become a relied-upon resource. Call it blogger, reporter, journalist, blabbermouth, or whatever – willingness to find, analyze, and disseminate information in a captivating way is not reserved for Capital J entities any longer. Better a reliable blogger than a hack journalist.
Steve –
I think what I’m saying is those labels long ago deviated from their objective definitions, and instead became a part of vernacular. Which is fine, when more or less everyone agrees on which people are in which camp (Journalist or Blogger.)
As the Great Disintermediation continues, the cues and clues that led us to those common conclusions are dissolving. And we will answer the Journalist/Blogger question on an individual basis for a while.
Which makes those labels, as you say, increasingly meaningless.
This is such a huge topic, Ike. A vital topic. And one that is close to my heart as it is to yours. I have actually started … then stopped…  probably a dozen articles on this topic, primarily because I don’t know where it’s heading and I don’t have a solution either. For all its flaws, we need the institution of the free press and I’m not sure that can be served by lone wolf bloggers, even if they’re brilliant. They still have to eat. What is the funding model for the new journalism?
Any time you weigh in on this subject I’m going to listen intently so I hope you keep the dialogue alive. It’s so critical. Thanks Ike!
When I started my real estate blog in 07, most people around Lake Martin thought “what is a blog?” These days there is still skepticism about “bloggers” in general but the biggest reason I do it is exactly your point – credibility over time. In my industry there is an unfortunate (but mostly well earned) reputation of people that will tell you whatever you want to hear – as long as you buy or sell whenever they say. My blog helps me gain credibility, one person at a time. I will never have huge numbers, but that’s not my goal. It is gratifying to me to meet people who say “I have been reading your blog for X years” and we can talk like we are old friends. If it comes to helping them with a deal, the trust that was earned over the long term is invaluable. Same goes for “journalists” or gurus or whatever. To my knowledge, Seth Godin has never been a beat writer, yet I can trust him for his honesty and insight because I have read his blog for years. Ditto for Pat Kitano at Media Transparent. I don’t have to see their name in print to trust what they write. Newspapers are going to have to decide if they are in the paper printing business or the content business. Tough choices, I don’t envy the decisions they will have to make in the near future.
Tried twitter sign in again and got this Prob due to a bad cookie,, I’ll try from elsewhere when I get a chance.
Woah there!
This page is no longer valid. It looks like someone already used the token information you provided. Please return to the site that sent you to this page and try again … it was probably an honest mistake.
I think one important difference is accountability. A professional journalist has more accountability than a blogger. The journalist has editors and publishers to whom he must answer. Beyond his reputation and credibility, in essence his career is at stake with every submitted piece of work.
You could argue that journalists and bloggers are subject to the same laws of libel, copyright and such, but a blogger can much more easily get away with skirting the law than a journalist can. Of course, that stems from perception. A statement in a city-wide newspaper is more visible than the same statement in a blog, thus the paper is more likely to be sued for infringement of the law than a blogger. Then again, if you’re someone like Drudge, you’re pretty visible. Of course, that visibility comes from the trust equation you mention in your post.
I’m not trying to claim that the accountability makes journalists better than bloggers. It could certainly be argued that such restraints present a hindrance for journalists that bloggers do not face. A blogger can get his story out faster without needing to go through a system of approval or copy-editing. He can also have free reign of the tone and focus of his material.
I’d like to assert that journalists are more qualified than bloggers (being a journalist myself), and overall I think that’s the case. However, there are certainly examples of bloggers doing it better.
I wholeheartedly agree with the equation you’ve presented (Trust=Credibility/Time). Professional journalists, though, have the benefit of being able to achieve that public trust in a much shorter time frame. Being subject to the body of the organization they represent, their time is weighted by the time that organization has been around. A blogger, on the other hand, has to start building that time from scratch, and it’s a bigger hurdle to clear.
@Matt — in a way, I think we’re arguing the same point, but coming to different conclusions.
I might argue that I have more accountability, because I own my words 100-percent and have no one else to blame for my errors. The professional journalist has more “checks and balances” in the system, but that system was designed to protect Institutional Integrity, and keep the entire house of cards from falling down when there is a breach in ethics or professionalism.
The new frontier we’re entering involves those who spent years building a trusted name as an individual (while enjoying the cloak of the newspaper,) who can then write for themselves as bloggers. The audience they build from scratch – the credibility not as much.
In a related note, I was a bit amused at the person who commented a week ago:
…as though I had no reputation of my own.
He’s right, if he’s from Prattville or Mobile, or any other place I never worked. But if he’s in Birmingham or Tuscaloosa or even Dothan, then there’s a track record associated with my name that gives me a jump-start on the formula.
Thanks!
Ike,
I think there used to be more differences than there are today, but journalists lost some ground when they dialed up validation news and thereby offered the same content on the bloggers they competed against. So really, there is no difference, assuming the blogger wants to be a journalist.
From my perspective, I think we made a mistake accepting “blogger” as a noun. The reality is there are far fewer “bloggers” than people with varied interests who “blog.” That includes journalists, as they have started to adopting short-format material with vetting it.
You’re right that time will eventually lead to something. On any given day, I might say you are right that it will sort itself out. And then, of course, there are those days I’m not always so sure.
Best,
Rich