Are Bloggers Wannbe Journalists?
May 7th, 2007 | Published in Africa, Blogosphere, Media | 3 Comments
Some old-school (African) journalists just don’t get it: Bloggers are not journalists, and don’t wanna be!!! At least I can speak for myself.
So When I read articles from journalists like South Africa’s David Bullard (photo) - whose recent article on Sunday Times is titled “Name and Shame Offensive Bloggers” - it is clear why some of our esteemed journalists on the continent need series of brain-shocks to be liberated from their ancient styles - just to see and appreciate the roles of blogs/bloggers in modern day media.
See Mikestopforth post on the same topic, excerpt:
“…blogging is not wannabe journalism. I keep hearing Print pro’s comparing the two, looking for ways to differentiate, looking for ways to attach relevance and importance. Blogging is it’s own practice, together with the wider digital social networking practice, and I think seeing all bloggers as try-hard journalists is unhelpful.”
May 7th, 2007 at 9:32 pm (#)
The really strange thing to me about journalist’s and the stereotype of bloggers is that journalists fail to appreciate that bloggers are very often sophisticated consumers of the press. This comes through in legitimate surveys of blog readers. Why do they treat their readers so mean?
May 8th, 2007 at 12:03 am (#)
Why do they treat their readers so mean?
I suspect it’s because these sophisticated consumers are critical readers.
Everybody writes to be read, but few enjoy being scrutinized and examined and turned over and over and poked and … you get my drift.
May 8th, 2007 at 7:47 pm (#)
I think the whole thing is a clever attempt by David “Dinosaur” Bullard to generate some cheap publicity - he launched his blog hours after his outburst on the SA blogosphere!