Scott Turner

11/26/07
IMS 201
The Impact of Blogging on American Journalism

Ever since Adolph Ochs, William Randolph Hearst, and Joseph Pulitzer pioneered

American journalism, not since television has such a technological innovation been as

influential to the field as the Internet. Its advent brought a level of communication that

was completely unimaginable. Suddenly people were able to instantly talk across the

globe for the price of next to nothing, exchanging information and ideas with new people;

all the while creating both an audience and a platform for that same audience to express

their own sides to the discussion. One such platform, the Blog, has prompted professional

journalists, the government, and the public to reexamine not only what it means to be a

journalist but what qualifies as journalism.

In order fully understand the world of online journalism, it is necessary to first

trace the history of its development. When the internet was first envisioned as a way to

disseminate news, no one really imagined it in a way other than as a means to supplement

print media. This is how the practice of ‘shovelware’ was born—cut and pasting print

stories onto a website (note that this is how broadcast/TV news began too; they simply

read aloud—sometimes verbatim—what was in the newspapers). Now, journalists are

realizing that there is a whole new world of ways to deliver news and tell stories—means

such as interactive flash applets, photojournalism/slideshows, podcasting, live streaming

video, as well as using raw video footage to tell a story—and such applications are being

improved upon each day.

The blog is another such tool that not only compliments the system of putting out

news but also has the potential to bring together all of the other elements I mentioned.
The ‘Blog’ itself is a website that displays a series of updates and typically displays the

most recent update first. Most blogs allow readers to comment on the posts. The term

Blog" can also be used as a verb describing the act of adding content to a blog. The

blogger, the webmaster who publishes the series of updates, determines the subject of the

blog and while some blogs are simply public diaries for the blogger, others are used as

platforms for social commentary and discussion or the dissemination of news (Matheson

448-9).

By providing a means for anyone with an internet connection to have a voice,

there has been a rise of, as professor of Journalism at NYU and author of the blog

pressthink.com Jay Rosen describes, ‘the people formerly known as the audience.’

Journalists have predicted and traced the rise what has been dubbed ‘citizen’ or

‘participatory’ journalism. "For the first time, people at the edges of the network have the

ability to create their own news entities," says Dan Gillmor, a San Jose Mercury News

journalist who is writing a book about participatory journalism (Lasica). It has also given

rise to the belief that these people should be open about their personal history and status

—something called journalistic transparency—so that readers know exactly who their

news is coming from and the biases that each blogger may hold. While the idea behind

media transparency is not a new one, in the field of journalism—especially where such a

high view of ‘objectivity’ is held—the idea is quite revolutionary.

In these ways, Online Journalism is threatening the entire system behind print and

broadcast journalism where journalists hide behind the names of their newspapers, and

the endless layers of editors and publishers who have their own agenda altering their

words. Perhaps nobody can say it better than Matt Drudge, a blogger (The Drudge
Report) who broke open the Monica Lewinsky scandal by monitoring the news wires

(such as AP and Reuters) and publishing a report on the internet about the killing of the

story by Newsweek, when he addressed the National Press Club in 1998;

“We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can

be a reporter, can take on the powers that be. The difference between the Internet,

television and radio, magazines, newspapers is the two-way communication. The

Net gives as much voice to a 13-year-old computer geek like me as to a CEO or

speaker of the House. We all become equal. And you would be amazed what the

ordinary guy knows.”

When Drudge gave his speech to the NPC, the audience was full of journalists

who, being used to the competitive nature of the field, were apprehensive of the potential

effects of bloggers at that time—creating a tension that still exists today. First, print

journalists felt that bloggers were undermining their authority as the end-all-be-all news

source; that the bloggers were taking their job away because they can disperse

information quicker than print journalists and often in a form more suitable to telling the

story. Being forced to get the news out quicker puts pressure on the print/broadcast

journalists and therefore increases their potential to make more mistakes in their

reporting. Bloggers are then able to show the errors in the print journalists reporting. Print

and broadcast journalists also attack bloggers by claiming that there is no ‘accountability’

with blogging because they are not subject to any editorial standards and therefore they

shouldn’t be considered ‘real’ journalists (Drudge).

 Obviously, the situation is very complicated. Some players in the debate such as

Vincent Maher, an influential South African voice on blogging, argue that “citizen

journalism is dead.” Others like Jay Rosen believe that blogs, or “little First Amendment

machines” will turn traditional journalism on its head. Is “the Internet going to save the

news business,” as Matt Drudge believes? Whatever happens, things are changing—I

would like to think it’s for the better.

Annotated Bibliography
Matheson, Donald. “Weblogs and the epistemology of the news: some trends in online
journalism.” New Media & Society, Aug 2004, Vol. 6 Issue 4, p443-468. Used to provide
a peer-reviewed, scholarly definition of a Blog.

Lasica, J.D. “What is Participatory Journalism?” August 07, 2003. Online Journalism
Review. <http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1060217106.php> This source attempts to
define what constitutes as “Participatory Journalism,” categorizing sites based on the
method of contribution, presentation, etc. Cited to give a clear definition of the
citizen/participatory movement.

Drudge, Matt. “Anyone With A Modem Can Report On The World”: Address Before the
National Press Club. June 2, 1998. Liberty Round Table Library: Essays.
<http://www.libertyroundtable.org/library/essay.drudge.html> Source used because
it is not only one of the first but is arguably the most influential speech on the subject.

Maher, Vincent. “Citizen Journalism is Dead.” August 5, 2005. Media in Translation.

<http://www.vincentmaher.com/mit/?p=6> Vincent Maher is head of the New Media
department at Rhodes University and is one of the leading voices in the debate on citizen
journalism. This article is cited to give representation to this side.

Rosen, Jay. “The People Formerly Known as the Audience.” June 27, 2006. Pressthink.
<http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html#
more> Jay Rosen has championed citizen journalism from the beginning and is one of
the leading voices opposite Maher.