Blogger Vs. Journalist

For Article: Chris Allbritton Isn't a Blogger (Or Is He?)
Posted by Jane Abao 9/4/2007 10:00:17 PM

Eventually, we will have to face this dichotomy. Google, for one, classifies almost everyone as a blogger who now claim to be journalists and it isn’t fair. This urgency for definition of terms comes in the wake of having to determine the rights of one. Journalists are covered with some rights and rightfully so.

A journalist may blog but that doesn’t lower his category to mere blogger. The first is a higher calling. A journalist is more disciplined in his writing; a blogger is not. A journalist is more careful in his craft; a blogger is not. A journalist has a wider perspective, has social awareness; a blogger only looks to himself, is very much self-oriented.

A journalist would look into what is happening in society and he writes about that and its implications as well. He looks beyond himself. On the other hand, a blogger would only talk about his concerns, his thoughts, and doesn’t follow principles in the way he writes and the way he treats topics. Simply look at one’s work and you can tell whether one is just a blogger or a journalist.

A Journalist Writes for the Public

For Article: Who's a Blogger, and/or Who's a Journalist?
Posted by Jane Abao 5/24/2007 8:02:19 PM

The way to tell a journalist from a mere blogger is to look at a considerable portion of a person’s work, including the story at issue. A journalist would follow principles from the way she writes her titles, to the way she structures her story, to the way she treats data, and to the way she is oriented.

A blogger cannot tell a well-crafted headline from a text line. They are usually long and taken from the body text of the story; hence these are called bloglines, not headlines. A blogger has no idea of structure and does not respect why structures should be so. She plays her story writing by the ear and imitates what she thinks are proper. Mostly, a blogger is self-oriented and has no consciousness for societal needs in news. For example, she would be writing more for her own interests than the interests of the public.

I would take the last as a measure of last resort. If she wrote her story such that society can benefit from her publication of the story, then she may be considered a journalist and entitled to all the rights of a journalist.

It should not be the medium that should determine whether one is a journalist or not. Whether she was writing for a newspaper or merely using Google or Wordpress or Yahoo or any other site to beat her story is of no consequence.