infobong.com

Earlier this week, I was pondering the oft-articulated question, "Are blogs journalism?" and, in order to think about this question I decided to lay out what I know for sure about journalism in order to better understand what it is we think about when we talk about "journalism."

Journalism is what journalists do. Yup, this rumination is gonna take on a rather post-modern character, but it comes with the territory. Our culture designates people as journalists, and what they do in that role is journalism. I don't think this is as obvious as it seems at first.

Journalism is a set of cultural practices. Here we get a little reflexive, but the set of these practices set Journalists apart from say, filmmakers, novelists, or White House press secretaries. We have J-schools to train our youth in this set of practices and discussions of "journalist ethics." Consumers of journalism have certain culturally defined expectaions of the work: in the US we expect journalism to be objective. This notion of "objectivity" is, in part, determined by these practices.

Journalism is practiced within a cultural institution. When a story appears in The New York Times we assume that the information is generally factual, and the reporter made an effort to portray the events as accurately as possible. The fact that The New York Times, CNN, or The Norman Transcript provides this information lends it an aura of credibility for us, the readers. Conversely, reporters for The New York Times or another outlet have a set of institutional norms and practices they must conform to in order to get their material published. These norms are probably more powerful and less transparent than the practices of journalism taught in J-School.

I'm sure there's some work done on the theory of journalism, but I've read none of it. This is hardly intended to be a comprehensive theory of journalism, either, just a way for me to understand how I understand journalism.

So, is blogging journalism? Well, its certainly something some journalists do, and its a cultural practice. However, There are few expectations on behalf of either the producers or consumers that determine the character of the content. Moreover, most blogs lack the institutional sanctioning implicit with journalism.

I suppose that some of the writers suggesting blogging is a new form of journalism could be taking a radical stances, suggesting we reconstruct our notions about what constitutes journalism, but if you're taking a stance that radical, you may as well ask "Is blogging a hamster?"

Anyway, today I read an column on the BBC site that asks, "Is Google Too Powerful?", but also treats the question "Is blogging journalism?"

The author, a technology consultant answers a definitive "no," citing institutional practices that distinguishes blogging from journalism.

Finally, The New York Times has a story about Google's acquisition of Blogger's parent company Pyra.