Blogs and Journalism
by Gunnar Berglund
More Blogging Articles
Published on this site: December 2003 - See
more articles from this month
The
world has seen the emergence of a new style of journalism, based on a 'raw feed'
directly from the source. And the common notion that surrounds the emergence of
serving 'raw feed' is that the journalists testing the new waters are bound to
wreak havoc on institutionalized media. Also a popular notion is that Weblogs
changes the nature of 'news' is in the migration of information from the personal
to the public.
Unquestionable, a blog is a medium that gives maximum exposure
to one's creativity. Just by hitting the 'post' button and any personal writing
becomes published writing.
Weblogging is driving a powerful new form of
amateur journalism. Today, millions of Net users - young people especially - have
taken up the role of columnist, reporter, analyst and publisher while fashioning
their own personal
broadcasting networks.
For the inexperienced, a blog
consists of a running commentary with pointers to other sites. Some, like Librarian.net,
Jim Romenesko's Media News or Steve Outing's E-Media Tidbits, cover entire industries
by providing quick bursts of news with links to full stories.
Journalism
and blogging together is becoming popular day by day, more than any other form
of blogging. Following reasons are considered to extensively contribute to its
increasing popularity:
Creative Freedom
Part of a blog's allure
is its unmediated quality. For a journalist, there's no luxury like the luxury
of publishing unedited essay. The freedom in being able to present
yourself
precisely as you want to is of enormous joy. It does not matter how sloppily,
irrationally or erratically the content is written. The idea is to publish what
you think in the way you think.
Instantaneity
To a few writers,
even writing for a weekly magazine may seem like taking ages to print. With a
Weblog, you hit the send key and it is out.
Interactivity
It
is a kick to receive feedback from people who have taken interest to read and
criticize your work. These are the people you have never heard of; who stumble
on your Weblog and become a part of your thinking process.
Lack Of Marketing
Constraints
When blogging it is not necessarily to tailor a work piece
for a certain readership or demographic. People interested in a perspective finds
its author - the blogger, instead of the blogger finding a publication that reflects
people's interests.
Most of the time, the Weblogs tend to be less about
actual reporting and more about analysis and punditry and opinionated commentary.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks fuelled the public's appetite for information, analysis
and news, if only to make sense of the tragedy. Bloggers rose to prominence by
feeding this desire.
Blogging has taken off in remarkable fashion; in a
way, it has made good where newsgroups have failed. It has kept the promise that
the Internet would provide
real community to Web surfers. Tuning in to some
of the newsgroups devoted to the terror attacks; one may sometimes feel to be
in the middle of a verbal war zone with so much noise passing for informed discussion.
Weblogs
run from single person operation to large teams and communities, to business organizations
spread throughout the world. They offer a great way for readers to find constantly
updated news and information. It also allows authors to connect to thousands of
readers in a personal way and add the honest, unedited voice of thousands to increasingly
commercializing Web.
The plethora of tools that helps managing the weblog
capitalizes on the ease of publishing posts to even greater extent.
These
are probably the reasons why they have been widely adopted and maintained - for
several years in some cases.
If you are new to blogs, you can buy a book
called A Study Book on Blogging, it´s available here: www.emarketingprofit.com/blogbook
Gunnar Berglund has been a "internet- hardworker" for
the last four years
He publishes The meonit Gazette http://gazette.meonit.com
www.emarketingprofit.com
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