Blogging About My Opinions on Web-Logging and it's Street Cred

Let's just skip the semantics and just cut to the chase for once Ryan, ok? ok.

Is blogging journalism? Well, in this reporter's humble opinion, yes. However, that's not to say that every blog is a legitimate source of factual information. Hell, if i farted in a bucket and called it art, does that make it art? My personal answer to that question would be yes, because I said it was art. But that doesn't make it good art. Writing a blog and calling it journalism just gets you tucked under the warm, sweeping blanket of the word 'journalism.' It doesn't make it good journalism.

On Save the Media, it was mentioned that, "Bloggers aren't journalists, but journalists can be bloggers." I can see exactly where there coming from here, but because I'm a jerk, I have to disagree. After searching through some internet definitions, the only real thing I found that makes a journalist and journalist is that they are formally employed by a news agency. Now, of course this ads a huge amount of credibility to their claim, but how can we exclude everyone else just because they're not working for Fox News? (bad joke). In all seriousness though, what if I happened to witness firsthand the signing of a major bill? or the former vice president shooting someone in the god damn face with a shotgun? If i went to my blog and hurridely typed up what I saw verbatim, does that not make me a journalist?

It seems more like these guys are arguing credibility rather than the definition of a journalist. And again, there's no doubt that I would rather hear a breaking news story from a proper journalist than some faceless internet personality, but I don't think we can complete discard bloggers as useless, biased information, which it often is, but we still can't write them off 100% (obviously this doesn't include people who have personal or commercial blogs, but you get my point....I hope).

Well anyway, whatever you're opinion is, this is just one of those arguments that I don't find worth getting heated about. People will continue to blog, journalists will continue to report, and despite all the hair-pulling and name calling, no one will win. Everybody's got an opinion, and you've just heard mine. If you believe on way or the other, there's a good chance I'm not going to sway your ideals, but it is a very interesting topic to hear both sides of nevertheless.

Well, I'm off to make a sandwich. Tuna salad today? Hmm...nope. Nutella and banana. Bingo. Later skaters.