The Journalists V.S The Bloggers

Journalism and blogging is kind of the same thing, right? Journalists have opinions, bloggers have opinions, they both write stories on a certain topic or subject. While some of this is true, the way in which they gather information and write a story can be a little different.

Lets break it down.

First off, journalists cannot be bias when writing a story, while most stories written by bloggers are all based on their own opinions and their point of view on a certain matter. Bloggers are somewhat considered journalists, but they are not necessarily an expert in a specific field like journalists are, which do not make them a reliable source for information. Journalists go out and gather quotes from individuals, conduct interviews and take photos to build on their story, while bloggers take information they find from other sources that may or may not be reliable. There is a lot of work and legal issues that come with being a journalist as well. If someone wants to stay anonymous you have to respect that and you cannot twist words around. They have to build relationships with their subjects in order to fully understand what they are going to write about. On top of that, journalists must write in a succinct way in order to not reveal any bias on the matter. Another side of journalism is that news stories have to go through many people and edits before it can be released to the public. Bloggers are the only voice of their stories.

Bloggers:

Blogging is somewhat like journalism, except they take two news stories and provide analysis and personal opinion to them. Bloggers take stories that are already written by journalists who have gone out and gathered information and give their own thought to certain stories. Before bloggers, there were only journalists. There was no Internet for people to create their own stories and share their opinions to an audience. All news stories were released in the papers. Now, with technology, the audience can become bloggers and create a participatory culture where people can come together and make comments and pose opinions on bloggers’ stories.

Blogging and journalism both create a participatory culture in that journalists may use their blogs to reach out to their audience on a specific matter to get opinions on a certain story or get new story ideas. Blogging creates a space where people can come together and share opinions on a certain matter that journalists have covered.