are bloggers journalists?
tommyDavid Harris seems like a good guy, and I’m sure he means well.
A couple months ago, I ran across a site I had never seen before, Dateline Tampa. The effort will soon be a “citizen journalism website for and by high school students in Tampa Bay.” What a great idea! So I contacted David, DT’s New Media Coordinator, and asked him to keep me apprised of the progress, and to let me know if there is anything Sticks of Fire could do to help.
I heard back from David this week. He says Dateline Tampa is mostly built, and simply awaiting the final go ahead from SDHC to get students and teachers directly involved. I expect this to be a great resource for local news from the students’ perspective.
And then the real reason he contacted me: David is also the president of the Society of Professional Journalists at USF. SPJ/USF serves journalism students of the University of South Florida, and they have scheduled an ethics panel entitled “Are Bloggers Journalists?” He wants to know if I could come by on Monday, November 5.
I want to invite you to our ethics panel: “Are bloggers journalists?” Your presence would be great. We have a few panelists, but we want a dialog from the audience, and you are a natural.
The more the merrier, so please forward this information to the Tampa blog-o-sphere.
Heh… “a natural what?” was my first thought. But I read it again, and was uncertain if I was to be on the panel, or just in the audience. So I asked him to clarify, and he told me
I want you in the audience, but this is a conversation. The panelists are “pros”, but we need bloggers who are also professional to balance the conversation. This is a dialog, and I hope you can be there.
I checked the press release and the pdf announcement on the website, and sure enough, the panelists are “pros.” Pro Journalists.
Featuring:
Gil Thelen, Executive Director of the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors
Lucas Grindley, Content Manager for the Sarasota News Network
Adrian G. Uribarri, Staff Writer for the Orlando Sentinel
I responded back: “Interesting that an ethics panel about bloggers doesn’t include any bloggers on the panel.” Au contraire, says David:
Lucas Grindley has a popular blog about the journalism business @ http://lucasgrindley.com
Adrian Uribarri has several blogs he posts to including the SPJ ethics committee blog Code Words http://www.spj.org/blog/blogs/ethics/
and Gil Thelen was most recently the Executive Editor for the Tampa Tribune, real old school, but teaches an editorial class using blogs as the medium at USF, and started a blog for the FSNE sunshine project.
It is too bad you can’t make it. Please send out a heads up to anyone you think may be interested.
Turns out that rather than my opinion, he just wants me to publicize his class. He contacted other local bloggers, too:
… we want a dialog with bloggers in the audience. Please be there if you can make it and promote the event on your blog so we can have a serious Tampa blog-o-sphere represented.
SarahInTampa also thought it funny that the panel failed to include bloggers, and let him know.
My 2 cents…I think you should have included some bloggers on the panel to balance out the discussion…hosting a panel with the “real” journalists on one side, bloggers “in the audience” sets the stage in advance to promote the mindset that the two are not on par with each other.
And David (who is a very likely candidate for a job with a PR firm): “I hope you are able to make it and tell others to come too.”
Both Sarah and I indicated to him that we would be happy to arrange our work schedules if asked to be on the panel. We have both done this thing before a number of times, and really enjoy speaking about the ins and outs of this blogging thingy. (OK, we’re bloggers - we love to have our opinions heard!)
But last minute invitations to bloggers to show up at a panel about blogging seems like an afterthought, and then suggesting they belong only in the audience, suggests that the question in their minds (Are bloggers journalists?) is already answered by the layout of the panel alone.
Of course, I am positive that the panel will be very informative, and they certainly don’t need my (or any blogger’s) opinion to discuss the issue. In fact, I do hope some bloggers can show up to offer those students an additional viewpoint, so if any of you bloggers are not busy, consider attending for the USF Journalism students. The event is on Monday, November 5, and begins at 5pm. It should last a couple hours.
SIDE NOTE: Bloggers can indeed be journalists. The courts recently ruled in favor of a blogger who was sued by a company for reporting on their bad practices:
Smith [the blogger] was immune from trademark claims because his reference to BidZirk was in the context of news reporting or news commentary. Though the court doesn’t equate bloggers and journalists generally, it gives Smith the same protection given to journalists.
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November 1st, 2007 at 9:18 am
I’ve wandered through both worlds and I can say with certainty that some journalists aren’t journalists.
Of course some bloggers are journalists. They perform the duties, but, that court case aside, aren’t afforded the same legal protections journalists receive.
In that manner, no, bloggers aren’t journalists. Not until we convince the lawmakers that some bloggers are self-published journalists. Much in the same manner owner/editors published their own newspapers 140 years ago.
November 1st, 2007 at 10:24 am
I agree that bloggers can be journalists. And it doesn’t make sense to have a panel about bloggers that doesn’t include bona fide bloggers. Somehow, journalists that happen to also have a blog doesn’t quite cut it.
November 1st, 2007 at 11:11 am
Run like the wind, T-man.
Trust me on this.
Although there’s every chance that it might make good blog fodder - there’s nothing like a good media train wreck to provide SOF content - it won’t be worth your time to be there.
November 1st, 2007 at 12:07 pm
i would say your post about this event is journalism, ie., original content, exposing something we didnt already know, larded though it is with your opinion. so bloggers can be journos, i guess.
when you just post something youve read in the trib or times and rail about it, well, that aint journalism. thats traditional blogging.
journalism takes time, money and inquiry beyond the expression of opinion.
what about columnists, you ask? dont they just express opinions?
yes, sometimes. but the better ones add something from the realm of inquiry to their viewpoint, thus qualifying as journalism.
that’s my 2 cents.
so if you want to be a journo, go to the event and tell us what happened because we probably wont read about it in the newspapers. your report would be journalism, sort of, though im sure your opinion will be laced throughout.
November 1st, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Wow, original topic idea
I think if you look at who is putting on the event, that will tell you everything about the make-up of the panel.
November 1st, 2007 at 3:11 pm
no
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:57 am
wow.
I feel bloggers are saying that journalists are not bloggers. interesting twist. The title was to entice professional journalists and professors, but appears to have incensed bloggers.
I thought the advantage of new media was to unite, but I see we have some work to do.
The previous post is correct: the Society of Professional Journalists is hosting an ethics panel; that is the point of the panel - for students to hear from professional journalists about ethics, through the question “Are bloggers journalists?”
This panel is not for the purpose of dissecting some antiquated hierarchy between journos and bloggers, but discuss journalism ethics.
The question opens many more questions, and that makes for a good conversation. My only intention was to invite you, sarah and anyone else interested in on the conversation.
Inviting you was an afterthought. This panel is not about bloggers. This panel is about ethics. As bloggers, I thought you would 1) have good insight to add to the conversation 2) provide a valid working definition of blogger and blogging, so the conversation is richer.
Why don’t you define what a blogger is, exactly, since a journalist automatically cannot be one in your view. What is the difference? I know bloggers can be journalists. Why can’t journalists be bloggers?
I come from blogging to loving new media to journalism, and I got to tell you, publishing my personal email and calling me PR is a real slap in the face.
I invited you two to a conversation, and to invite your peeps. I wanted you in in the conversation. Isn’t that what bloggers do? Conversation.
If I felt a panel didn’t represent, I would be the first one there.
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:35 pm
I think the real question is “Are bloggers worth anything as journalists?”
Because, yes, certainly, anyone can be a “citizen journalist” - get online, throw up some facts, a little editorial and there you go.
But, Tommy, really, go easy on the PR comment. You’ve said it to me, too, and it sounds nastier than what you probably mean. There is nothing wrong with relating to the public.
It’s something most bloggers and journalists want to do, too.
Although, yeah, Mr. Harris does seem to think the journalists have a right to endow the bloggers with credibility.
And I can see where journalists deserve more respect when it comes to reporting, but not necessarily editorializing and that’s where I think, Mr. Harris, you should consider Tommy or somemone like him as a panel member. He’s a pro blogger and I don’t think anyone thinks he’s trying to be a traditional journalist.
He and his team are a hybrid body and, even when I personally don’t understand the direction or aims of SoF, it’s created something new and progressive and that’s the WHOLE POINT of your discussion.
Supposedly, right?
Well, have fun, either way. And respect each other.
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:22 pm
jour·nal·ist /ˈdʒɜrnlɪst/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[jur-nl-ist] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. a person who practices the occupation or profession of journalism.
2. a person who keeps a journal, diary, or other record of daily events.
LOOKS LIKE A BLOGGER IS A JOURNALIST TO ME.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:44 pm
The 3 panelists - who are journo-bloggers - are proof that:
1/ journalists can be bloggers
2/ bloggers can be journalists.
November 3rd, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Hey David. I’m so glad you have taken the time to respond here. I can’t speak for Sarah, but I am certainly not incensed at your effort to educate future journalists about ethics. In fact, I applaud you for taking the time and energy to devote a session about journalists’ ethics as it relates to bloggers.
I’ve pissed off a number of folks who try to pigeonhole bloggers into a category that pits them against journalists. I simply think that the comparison is not very helpful, and completely unfair to both groups.
You invited us to a panel, not a conversation. There will be three journalists on a stage to pontificate about ethics, and the lowly audience will be “allowed” to ask questions. That’s not a conversation, it is a lecture. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but a true conversation begins with all parties on an equal footing - each viewpoint not only has a chance to speak, but also makes use of the ability to listen.
I have NEVER said “a journalist automatically cannot be” a blogger. (I often suggest that many media corporations, newspapers, magazines, PR firms, ad agencies and the like are generally unsure how to move about in this new age of media.) Anyone - anyone - can start a blog/be a blogger. There are no rules.
I wish you the best, and will try to make it to the event on Monday night. At any rate, I’m sure you will find the event successful.
November 4th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
David,
After reading your email where you apologized for wasting my time and promised not to bother me again, I wrote you back with my response. I feel I need to put it “on record” in this public forum:
———————–
David,
I’m sorry if you are taking this as a personal attack. Both Tommy and I have a lot of respect for you, your site, your work, and the journalism community as a whole.
The fact is you are holding a panel whose title is “are bloggers journalists?” You don’t have bloggers on your panel, only journalists, albeit journalists who blog. If you don’t understand the difference between the two, then I’ll agree that with you that we do have “work to do.”
If, as you say, the panel’s purpose is to have pro journalists discuss ethics, then a better title for the panel would be something along the lines of “blogging’s impact on journalism ethics.” Instead, it looks like a platform where the discussion is going to be about whether or not bloggers are journalists…I mean, really, that is the title. And by not having bloggers as panelists, it would appear that the answer has already been decided.
If you wanted to invite us because you thought we would enjoy listening to pros discussing the matter, that would have been great had the panel been publicized as what it actually is about. It is not a leap for us to assume that the panel is about bloggers, but as I’m learning *just now* from your email below, it is not. And If it’s not about bloggers & you don’t need bloggers to speak on the panel, then, yes, it would be nice to attend and listen, maybe interject a few questions, but may not warrant re-arranging my work schedule to do so. If you really want to have questions like “what is the definition of a blogger” dissected and discussed, those would probably be good fodder for a panel that *is* about bloggers. Bottom line is, you cannot have a true conversation about this topic when the format is a panel with pros speaking and bloggers as audience members asking questions. A panel, by its very format, implies that some people are experts whose opinion has value, and everyone else is there to gain wisdom from those opinions. That is not a conversation.
I am sorry if you are offended by our responses, no one here is trying to hurt anyone else. But to be surprised that bloggers have opinions & publicize them should not be so shocking. And as a good rule, I hope you know that there should never be an expectation of privacy when it comes to email.
I have to say a got a little kick out of you saying that calling you “PR” was a “slap in the face.” I imagine people who do PR for a living are irked at that response. There isn’t actually anything wrong with PR in general, it’s just nice when it’s transparent. And quite frankly, a panel called ” Are bloggers journalists?,” that “isn’t about bloggers,” where bloggers are invited “as an afterthought,” to be “a part of a conversation” seems like the very opposite of transparency.
Finally, I hope you understand I have no ill will towards you and I wish you nothing but the best with the panel.
November 4th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Davis,
Your “invitation” reminds me a little of the people who set up the “power office”, where the person has their desk and char a little higher than the visitors’ chairs and the visitors are looking into the sun. All designed to put the visitors “in their place”.
There is a reason that bloggers have so little respect for the “pros” in the MSM and you have just added to it.
November 7th, 2007 at 8:24 am
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