Bloggers have struggled with the concept of what exactly makes a "journalist" a "journalist." Certainly, bloggers do report on news and popular topics of the day, but is a blogger truly a "citizen journalist" in the truest sense of the word?
Dictionary.com defines "journalist" as:
1. One whose occupation is journalism.
2. One who keeps a journal.
Still, that doesn’t give us a lot to go on. Even if we disgard the second definition, the first definition is still confusing given the makeup of the blogosphere. Some bloggers would like to consider themselves journalists, while others simply view themselves as commentators. Some professional journalists also keep blogs in which they report news. As bloggers, are they journalists? If someone makes their living reporting news on their blog, but isn’t a "journalist" in the traditional sense of the word, are they a journalist?
The Public Relations Strategist published a transcript of a roundtable discussion where participants answered questions such as these. Although no concrete solutions are devised, there’s a lot of food for thought.
Personally, I think the blogger/journalist debate can’t be solved using traditional definitions. The blogosphere is so diverse that it’s both unfair and inaccurate to lump everyone under one broad be-all-end-all term. I see a possible future where the term "blog" fades, to be replaced by more specific describing words that more accurately describe what a "blogger" does. Offer commentary? Write reviews? Publish a novel one chapter at a time? Actually publish breaking news? It would be helpful to have terms that differentiate these folks from one another while still letting readers know that they publish in "blog" format.
0 Responses to “Clarifying “Journalist””