This debate is being conducted beyond PEI with great vitriol - why I was impressed by the manner of the discussion here. Peter I think that there is in fact no line really in what we do but only in the label. Some bloggers comment - some follow stories as journalists do. Where is the line and why the passion?
If we look at schools we see the same line. A “real” teacher has to have a Teaching degree and get paid working for a “real” school. The explicit assumption is that only such a “professional” training and only such an “accredited” organization can safely “teach”. Of course this is utter rubbish. Most good teachers have a natural ability and learn to be really good by teaching. The actual course work for a B of Ed is merely a guild barrier. Good teaching does not need a school either - another guild barrier.
Journalists at the heart are only story tellers.
I say only not in a deprecating way but to define what it is that they do. So are good bloggers.
A myth about journalism is that they are careful about the truth. This may be true in a micro sense but has never been true on a macro sense. Newspapers etc exist to sell advertisng space and to pay their owners. Nothing wrong in that per se. But as we have seen in our own lifetime, they have a deep systemic bias to the status quo and to pleasing those in power.
One of the aspects I enjoy about the press in the UK is that no one pretends to be unbiased. Each organ stakes out ground and speaks to that. Here in North America, the bias is cloaked.
More recently even the micro facts - balloon boy etc - are not checked. But the passion to draw the line is fuelled mainly by the reality that the old media is dying and is lashing out and looking to protect itself. A natural response but still nasty. They claim that they have been undermined by losing revenue to Craigslist and attachment to Google. But if you look at the numbers, they have lost their audience and their readers.
I think in our now very complex world, the “News” offers only a commodity headline - Flu!!!! Risk!!!! Get Vaccinated!!! - Market’s Up Buy Buy Buy Markets Down Sell Sell - More Killed in Afghanistan More Killed More Killed - Michael Jackson/OJ/Jay Lo As they lose resources, this frantic search for headlines gets worse and the cycle continues. As they lose circulation and ad revenue, they are faced with their systemic costs.
The paper, the studios, the union rules, the guild practices. They all totter now. In reality, papers and stations will close all over North America. Canwest cannot even give their stations away! Thousands will lose well paying jobs. Those that are left feel cornered and have to lash out - it must be someone else’s fault - those Bloggers!
The debate at the CBC was polite, but I live with this every day in the US where passions are high. Why so high?
I think that this is more like the Reformation than any other precedent. A once invulnerable institution who defined their power by claiming to be the only connection to God, whose leader was appointed by God, whose Priests were the only true priests were being assaulted by an idea. The idea was that all could find and converse with God directly. That there was no need for such an institution. That being a priest began in the human heart. Now that is not what the reformed church became but that was the idea that shook the Mother Church.
So as I see it, it’s not really about the bloggers versus the papers or the TV or Radio stations. It is the death of an industrial idea. The death knell for all such institutions. Soon there will not longer be this debate about who is a journalist because there will be only a handful of papers and other traditional organizations and there will be a void. Like planets forming from stellar dust, new institutions will form - many bloggers will find a place in this new system as will a few “journalists”. This will happen soon enough here on PEI.
There is a really good debate going on at Peter's blog and this compelled me to launch this response
