So I found this article about a blogger in America who is in court with investment firm Obsidian Finance Group and its co-founder Kevin Padrick after she ‘went out of her way’ to bad-mouth them on various sites.
It’s really interesting to read, and I particularly like the below definition of a journalist, and it demonstrates how the blogger doesn’t fit that mould and thus isn’t given the same protection/allowances as journalists are:
‘Defendant fails to bring forth any evidence suggestive of her status as a journalist. For example, there is no evidence of (1) any education in journalism; (2) any credentials or proof of any affiliation with any recognized news entity; (3) proof of adherence to journalistic standards such as editing, fact-checking, or disclosures of conflicts of interest; (4) keeping notes of conversations and interviews conducted; (5) mutual understanding or agreement of confidentiality between the defendant and his/her sources; (6) creation of an independent product rather than assembling writings and postings of others; or (7) contacting “the other side” to get both sides of a story. Without evidence of this nature, defendant is not “media.”‘
I find the whole story fascinating, as I do with the debate about bloggers as journalists generally.
Do I classify bloggers as journalists? On the whole, no.
Do I see myself as a journalist? At the moment, no.
Do I classify some blogs and their writers journalists? Yes.
People like Rachel Hills, Marieke Hardy and so on.
People who were full-blown journos before starting their blogs. (Or perhaps people who started out as bloggers, used that as a platform, and are now journos. But can their pre-proper-journo blog be counted as journalism now?)
I like how the definition above points out ‘proof of adherence to journalistic standards such as editing, fact-checking, or disclosures of conflicts of interest’.
As everyone knows: anyone can set up a blog and write whatever they want.
What journalistic standards! Pfft!
I’d like to think I hold myself to most – if not all – of those standards, but that still doesn’t make me a journalist.
If you look at other forms of media – newspapers, magazines, television – you have to have a certain level of respect, of knowledge, in order to write for them.
Anyone with a computer connection and basic internet skills can start a blog.
I don’t think bloggers deserve the same credibility, rights or similar as journalists, but I think we need to carve out our own rules and expectations.
Which is going to be hard, given their is no convening body to over-see everyone.
What do you think?