Bloggers are journalists

I do that every time. The problem with not being a native speaker is that I can't see the spelling errors that easily. My spelling is pretty good in German, not just because I know how to spell, but because I can see the errors more easily. Spellchecker doesn't catch everything (loose lose, it's its). I don't know if you have any experience writing in another language, because it strikes me as rather monolingual to ask someone to have immaculate spelling in a foreign language with the help of word processors. To disqualify what someone says by pointing fingers at spelling is like closing your ears when someone has a lisp. (Now, before we enter the motif of Shakespeare's spelling, can we stop this useless discussion please - there are 100s of forums where this has been discussed without end, it's boring and destructive).

Yes. Identity is the key to responsibility. I am a strong advocate of using real identities on the web. If you'd have to identify as soon as you publish something in a public domain, there would be much less aggression, slurs lies and distortions, and a much more human overall tone.

No. But they are highly beneficial to my business. How do you think the newspaper client found us? Aaaahhhaaaa! Yes, this is how it works. And the same marketing mechanics apply to newspapers. But beware: It only works if you are genuine and relevant in what you say. Purely sensationalist blogs don't go anywhere. I write my blog with a lot passion. Without that passion I wouldn't be able to get further than some Swiss dude babbling about what everyone else is babbling about. I hope that I do make a difference. (Yes, I do have a journalistic background, which helps me to shape a story).

Some newspapers have comments. Of course you always need to monitor. The idea is to get your intelligent readers to co-monitor. You need the right people to do that. Given that you'd have the identities of the posters that job wouldn't be too hard.

He will have to genuine, otherwise he'll just stay in his corner. Read the Cluetrain Manifesto. Read Steve Jobs famous "blog" entry about DRM.

I am and always was very open about who I am and what I do. No need for insults. And no scam at all. This is two months of hard work made public for free.

It's an excellent opportunity for me to hear professional journalist's opinion on the matter. I wish everyone would post under his/her own name.

 

Also, I don/t know what blogs you read. Usually I start my day here: http://www.memeorandum.com/ a mix of newspaper websites and blogs. When it comes to tech news, http://www.techmeme.com/

I can't see anything wrong with that. Much more efficient than going through 100s of RSS feeds.

 

Fortunately, U.S. newspapers will remember that this idiotic experiment already failed at the Los Angeles Times, which had vastly more resources than most of us with which to monitor the kooks who would choose to participate:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-wiki-splash,0,1349109.story

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8300420/

 

No, but I've edited many reporters who can't manage this simple procedure.

 

Gatekeeping is one of the primary distinctions between no-agenda reporting and PR. When that's taken away, when "the process" becomes nothing more than people of random objectivity taking on a given subject, then the result more likely would be a mess than some collective strength. There's more to this than knowing how to type and hit the send button.

 

No one is doubting that filtering is important and no one says that we don't need journalists. We need journalists more than ever, as the info junk is increasing day by day.

The thing with bloggers is: You have to tell people who you are and where you're coming from. With bloggers there is no doubt that what they express is an opinion. Philosophically this is all you can get to anyway. A strong opinion. There is no such thing as an independent point of view. Readers appreciate that and that's why "The letters to the editors" usually are the most read part of a newspaper. (Yes I do have journalist training).

The claim that media is independent is an 11th myth. Every newspaper has a certain bias, and reader that buy that certain newspaper by it because they share that bias.

FOX news claims that it's fair and balanced, yet we know that it's a mere propaganda channel. Not everyone knows that. Integrating a mix of opinions within a news channel will help the balance of reporting rather than destroying it. Of course one has to know how to to it. What the LA Times (and lately USA Today) did is nothing but amateurish.

 

Oliver - About 1/100 of one percent of the population, if that, care enough about who wrote a story and how it was sourced to sift through the kind of information you suggest we Web publish - the majority of them, present company excluded, wackos and conspiracy theorists with an agenda.

Just not enough interest to justify the man hours put into a project like you suggest, even if you ignore its clear flaws (i.e. inviting veiled propaganda).

I think because you're interested in media and current events, you and others like you get a very skewed view of how much interest others have in it. Most people just use the media to stay informed. They may rail about "the media" and its "agenda" because they're conditioned to do so, but when push comes to shove, they don't have time in their day to go cross-referencing sources and playing watchdog.

Also - this is all a novelty for people right now. Just wait 5, 10 or 20 years. I highly suspect that the bloggers and Wikipedians of the world are going to tire of working for free.

 

After conquering the world of journalism, Oliver will be devising a computer program that will demystify the murky world of medicine, allowing us to not only diagnose our ailments, but prescribe our own medications and perform surgery on ourselves. After all, we have become turned off by physicians' arrogance and their stinginess with controlled substances, and who is to say that you need any special training to know that when it hurts, take a Vicodin?

 

Yeah. Journalists = doctors.

Less ridiculous than bloggers = goatfuckers, but not by much.

 

My point is that he doesn't seem to believe we have skills and training that the average person lacks. I find it impossible to respect anyone who doesn't have sufficient respect for us. Show some knowledge of what we do and we can have a discussion. Demonstrate ignorance of what we do, coupled with an arrogance that says he knows better than experienced professionals, and we have no reason to trust anything he has to say.

 

Oliver, while I applaud your persistence on this issue and your ability to argue it, you're dead wrong on the spelling thing.

You can speak another language. Great.

But like others have argued, spelling is one of those things that journalists are judged on--and misspellings and misinformation are exactly how a paper loses readers. If a paper can't present its material in an easy-to-read, well-presented manner (and that includes correct grammar and spelling), it will lose credibility in a heartbeat.

That's why a lot of us spend hours on end in a newsroom making sure that EVERY WORD is spelled correctly in every story, that every comma is in place and every sentence makes sense. Sometimes, errors slip through, but editors fix them more often than not.

That's just how it works.

 

I am not saying anything alike. The integration of content from readers would require a lot of hard work, of course. Meaning, we need more journalists to deal with badly written content.

The skill of a journalist is underrated, as so many creative and intellectual jobs. The disrespect for professions in an age where everyone feels like a writer, designer, musician, journalist, internet consultant is indeed annoying as hell. My philosophy teacher Dr. Gerhard Graf used to say:

<blockquote>"We would never get on a plane with a cheese maker as a pilot, but when it comes to thinking, everyone suddenly feels like a pilot of thought." </blockquote>

With new media it gets particularly annoying as you often have to take insults on your hard work from people that have neither read what you wrote, nor any relevant experience in the matter yet they feel so super superior.