Blogging is Not Journalism

I came across this post by blogger Jolie O’Dell who distinguishes between journalists and bloggers. (I’m assuming she is referring to political blogs more so than those that deal with fly-fishing). She argues that there is a clear distinction between objective, journalistic reporting in any medium, and bloggers who have a clearly evident agenda.

She lists ten “tell-tale” signs of a journalist. Some include:

A journalist’s work is not overly precious to him.
As part of this journalistic training, you get accustomed to having your work ripped to shreds and watching whole paragraphs get shaved in column inches from the bottom of your articles — if you wrote it correctly and you’re lucky, it’ll be the bottom.

As a result, you do not get offended when your editor tells you, and I quote, “Jolie, this sentence fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.” (Marshall Kirkpatrick, ReadWriteWeb) You begin to look at your writing the way a stranger would. You see the errors, the ugliness, the factual haziness, the sloppy turn of phrase. And you or your editor make repairs as needed without much fuss.
…

The blogger is an autonomous creature, not accustomed to being under the scrutiny of a professional editor. He hasn’t had his work and soul trampled quite as mercilessly — although commenters can be cruel bitches, it’s true — so he’s a bit more attached to his words. Also, his words are more frequently tied to his personal ideas.

A journalist refrains from opinion in news stories.
Objectivity is a word oft-repeated in journalistic circles. The journalist strives for this: Neutrality, freedom from bias, absolute truth, facts unsullied by emotion. We cannot settle for “both sides of the story.” We must tell all sides of the story, and we must represent each side fairly regardless of our individual beliefs and views.
…

[While] The blogger is more wont to allow “news” writing to be colored by opinion. As a non-professional, at least in the early days of blogging before electronic publications were considered press, the news cycle came to bloggers secondhand. At that point, opinion and analysis were all that was left to add. For that reason and for others (having to do, I would imagine, with injecting colorful commentary to boost traffic), news blogs tend to include a great deal more commentary and opinion than we’re used to seeing in journalism. This can be a good thing in some cases and a bad thing in others; however, the formally trained journalist is not given to over much editorial content.

Very interesing post. You can read it here. Some of the comments are worth a read as some people take exception to her article and make valid points themselves. The article is a follow-up to an earlier one titled In Defense of The Fourth Estate. Another interesting read.