Blogging: the new journalism?
by Jody Raynsford
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
Before i joined JU I was totally ignorant to blogging and just what it meant and what you actually did with it. Since coming to JU, in a short period I've learnt an awful lot about it. Through reading other peoples blogs, and seeing responses to mine, and if I'm honest it's got me slightly intrigued. I did a search today to see what other blog sites I could find and compare them to JU, and see if they all follow a similar pattern, or of their are huge differences. Now maybe I'm just completely loyal I don't know, but none of the ones I came across were even close to JU, biased maybe? Me? Never! Hehe! I did find a rather interesting article though, which you can find here Link that had me completely intrigued. Blogging the new jounalism? At first i wasn't to sure about this but after reading the article, one or two things made quite a bit of sense.
"They are opinionated, ranting, often incoherent and frequently biased with little regard for accuracy or balance. They are also compellingly addictive and threatening to emerge as a new brand of journalism."
Hehe, sound familiar to any of you folks? I thought I would keep my blog as a form of diary, which it is, I thought I would record day to day events in my life, and it would be away of venting things, and obviously would be something I enjoyed because I love writing so much. Over time though I've seen it as a way of voicing my opinion on things, commenting on things I've seen, sharing my thoughts on things, and not just keeping it as a running commentary on my life. I've tried not to have it to serious, as I have wanted to keep it light hearted and fun, which really is what the whole point of blogging is. Sometimes though you can't help but get passionate on certain issues, you feel so strongly that emotion does take over and you do just let things spill out onto the keybaord that you might not normally, but this website has given you the opportunity to do that. To tackle serious issues that you want to talk about, you want to debate about. It's all about learning, learning from others and learning from your own ability and that's what makes it so special.
"Perhaps one attraction of blogging lies in its unmediated and dynamic quality. Without an agenda, editorial stance or pedantic sub-editor standing between the writer and reader, blogging can provide reportage in a raw and exciting form."
If I'm honest I don't really have alot of respect for jounalists anymore, there seems to be other motives to the things they publish, as with most things in the world, it's turning into being just about money, it's what makes the world go round, huh? These journalists I'm sure have a passion about what they write about, they don't get paid to great, and they get to share opinions with the world, but it's censored, it's written for a reason, and it can't always be counted as the truth. Not that I'm saying blogs can be, but more on that later. When you read someones blog, they are writing it from the heart, they are writing it because in a certain way it has touched them, now their are exceptions to every rule, we know this, but the majority are writing with no other motives than to share their opinions with everyone else, and maybe even educate a few people in the process.
"If they're not sticking to standards, it'll be noticed by readers and other webloggers, who will take the author to task for the impropriety. The community acts as the editors."
This is my favourite bit 'the community acts as the editors' so true! We encourage each other, we question each other, we push each other that extra mile, and that in my opinion is what makes it so different. You don't just write something and have no feedback. You are encouraged to voice your opinion, and tell people why you think such things, but you can also be questioned on it, you can get into debates about things. If your facts aren't right people have the power to tell you. It's not even about making people look stupid, it's just about good intelligent debate, and as long as people don't forget it is good fun, blogging could go a long way!
"They are opinionated, ranting, often incoherent and frequently biased with little regard for accuracy or balance. They are also compellingly addictive and threatening to emerge as a new brand of journalism."
Hehe, sound familiar to any of you folks? I thought I would keep my blog as a form of diary, which it is, I thought I would record day to day events in my life, and it would be away of venting things, and obviously would be something I enjoyed because I love writing so much. Over time though I've seen it as a way of voicing my opinion on things, commenting on things I've seen, sharing my thoughts on things, and not just keeping it as a running commentary on my life. I've tried not to have it to serious, as I have wanted to keep it light hearted and fun, which really is what the whole point of blogging is. Sometimes though you can't help but get passionate on certain issues, you feel so strongly that emotion does take over and you do just let things spill out onto the keybaord that you might not normally, but this website has given you the opportunity to do that. To tackle serious issues that you want to talk about, you want to debate about. It's all about learning, learning from others and learning from your own ability and that's what makes it so special.
"Perhaps one attraction of blogging lies in its unmediated and dynamic quality. Without an agenda, editorial stance or pedantic sub-editor standing between the writer and reader, blogging can provide reportage in a raw and exciting form."
If I'm honest I don't really have alot of respect for jounalists anymore, there seems to be other motives to the things they publish, as with most things in the world, it's turning into being just about money, it's what makes the world go round, huh? These journalists I'm sure have a passion about what they write about, they don't get paid to great, and they get to share opinions with the world, but it's censored, it's written for a reason, and it can't always be counted as the truth. Not that I'm saying blogs can be, but more on that later. When you read someones blog, they are writing it from the heart, they are writing it because in a certain way it has touched them, now their are exceptions to every rule, we know this, but the majority are writing with no other motives than to share their opinions with everyone else, and maybe even educate a few people in the process.
"If they're not sticking to standards, it'll be noticed by readers and other webloggers, who will take the author to task for the impropriety. The community acts as the editors."
This is my favourite bit 'the community acts as the editors' so true! We encourage each other, we question each other, we push each other that extra mile, and that in my opinion is what makes it so different. You don't just write something and have no feedback. You are encouraged to voice your opinion, and tell people why you think such things, but you can also be questioned on it, you can get into debates about things. If your facts aren't right people have the power to tell you. It's not even about making people look stupid, it's just about good intelligent debate, and as long as people don't forget it is good fun, blogging could go a long way!
smartaz, the comment was meant in a humorous vein, hence the "err..." Sorry my humor is not to your taste.
...Smartaz I always appreciate your comments, as I know many other people do, I really hope you don't stop commenting because it always adds something to the article.