Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Chapter 9

Computer Columnist John C. Dvorak said in chapter 9, "Citizen journalism is like citizen professional baseball. You can't play pro baseball just because the Seattle Mariners stink."

This quote is supposed to mean that citizen journalism might become more prevelant in journalism, but it's not going to replace professional journalism. There is a certain level of professionalism and access that just won't be there with bloggers. 

Bloggers may be more unbiased or they might have the capability of scooping journalists, but very few bloggers are actually capable of getting interviews or have the journalism background to report ethically on big issues.

Anyone can sit at a computer and write something, but to apply ethics and theory along with good reporting takes a good education. It's similar to being good at baseball with your friends. You may be able to hit the ball 400 feet if your friend is pitching 60 miles an hour or pitch a fastball faster than Jamie Moyer, but you don't have the location that he does and you don't have the reflexes of a guy hitting homers with 90 mile an hour heat. 

It doesn't mean that the guy isn't a good baseball player because his skills are at a low minor league level, but he's not better than the average Seattle Mariners player. It's similar to how being a blogger and writing something that gets a million hits doesn't necessarily make you better than a NY Times writer just because you scooped him.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I think this is a very interesting post, and a very interesting idea. is blogging professional journalism? On a whole, I would definitely say no. But there might be some people who have taken it to the level of professional journalism. what of them? have they then left the minors-blogging world and entered the pro-journalism world? Does the medium determine what is journalism, or does the content?