Are Bloggers Journalists?

One of the most influential sources of information nowadays is blogging. It may even be considered as one of the fastest way to disseminate information online other than tweeter. The number of bloggers has shoot up and is making its way through the bee-line market, that's for sure. And at most times, bloggers and journalists are deemed to be one and the same. But are they, are bloggers journalists?

What is a blog anyway? It is merely a journal based on personal views, feelings and ideas but not necessarily based on facts. A blogger is simply the person who blogs.

A journalist, on the other hand, comes up with information about the world around them and they publish their work by means of mass media.

Both of which, gather and present information to the public. Bloggers and journalists both tap current issues whose goal is to influence or sometimes dictate to people. Several bloggers have been legitimized as a form of journalism; some even get press privileges to cover events. These are some of the reasons why some classify bloggers as journalists. The distinctions are various though.

Bloggers differ from journalists by the way they present their perspectives. Bloggers always provide information on a personal perspective whereas journalists view shows that of different people to obtain a wider perspective. Likewise, journalists provide useful information since these are obtained from factual sources. Bloggers sometimes contain information that are not useful for the readers because they cover personal views all the time. At most times, journalists fight or go way beyond their means just to be on top of the hottest news, be the first to publish new issues and sometimes they may find it difficult to start an issue that has been tapped already because they need to find something new; whereas bloggers doesn't care if they are going to be nth person to blog about a certain point. Most of the time, information from blogs are carried over from one writer to another. Bloggers and journalists also differ on the way they gather information. Most of the time, bloggers' articles were obtained from tweeter, other social networking sites or other blogs, just as simple as information being passed on as an information in another form. Like rumors or gossip spread all over the web and who knows how fast they multiply. Journalists on the other hand, write information based on facts, with credible sources from where they have obtained the information. They investigate and take time to come up with original compositions. Bloggers are usually one-sided. They cater to their own opinion and their personal views whereas journalists try to get all the information from different points of view making their report more informative.

People learn things from the stuff they read and sometimes even get influenced by the things they read. Sometimes, bloggers serves as good training ground for journalism. It's heart-breaking to know that in the world today, bloggers are trying to take over the factual journalism. As people get more attached to reading blogs, they tend to feel bored about the usual journalist stuff that they got used to before. But little did they know that those reports that they turn their backs to are nothing like rumors, that they are more reliable sources of information.

It just goes to show that not all bloggers are journalists and that all journalists are bloggers. So are bloggers journalists? Logically speaking, bloggers and journalists are spelled differently so Merriam Webster would definitely come up with different definitions for each. Technically, they are considered different. Otherwise, they should have fallen under the same name. They may have fallen under the same bucket, but not entirely the same. Sometimes, it may take more than just writing to a good number of the crowd applauding.

Websites For Learning All About Journalism

  1. Columbia Journalism Review
  2. CRAYON: Create Your Own Newspaper
  3. Journalism Education Association
  4. N.S.P.A-studentpress.org-A.C.P
  5. Write Site