In reference to this particular article from The Register…
The author here makes an incredibly shortsighted assumption that all people who run a weblog are journalists, or are aspiring journalists. The simple truth is that most people who run weblogs do so as a means of documenting their own history. Your average Joe’s modern weblog is NOT a newspaper or magazine. It does not have a team of writers or an army of photographers, nor does it publish on a scheduled basis. It probably does not even have an established subscriber base. Names are often either changed or omitted. Most importantly, nobody is being paid for what goes online.
On the other hand, a weblog isn’t really like a diary or journal either; everything is public and in many cases readers can post a response of their own. There are no underwear drawers to be rummaged through,
To me, blogging is more like a world pub. Publishers (speakers) and readers (listeners) drop in as they wish. Some blog posters are storytellers with crowds and fancy words, while others sit in a corner muttering to themselves. Some of the posters open themselves to criticism, and others don’t. Some of the listeners in the crowd shout out commentary, and others sit back and observe. If an old man in the bar is telling a tale or explaining a past experience, he doesn’t have to ask anyone if he’s telling it correctly. If I post something on my blog, I don’t need to get an editor’s opinion or consult any sources.
Where does this comparison to journalism come from? I’m not a journalist. This isn’t a serial novel. I’m an old man in a bar, telling war stories. If you don’t like it, go sit in a corner. Better yet, tell your own stories.
Yes you are, so stop lying you dirty liar. :p
I’ll have a crown and coke please.
I think there’s an important distinction in the article that you may or may not have noticed: the author continually uses the term “weblog” rather than the more common “blog” when referencing this class of website. While that may seem like a pointless semantic observation, I think it speaks to the sort of site the article is really talking about.
Weblogging was originally a lot like the newsgroups and bulletin-board systems of old in that they were public discussion forums. Although the information was often filled with personal bias and anecdotes it was still by and large relevant even if you didn’t know the person intimately. The weblog “pioneers” had as much in common with today’s LiveJournal crowd as an Apple IIe does with a modern PC (that is to say, they share the same roots). The shorthand term blog evolved out of the net culture that grew around weblogging and, like most net terms (from 1337 to basic acronmys) was created by the internet “elite” and was later absorbed by the “under seventeen” demographic and pummled to the point that most of us can stand to see it typed or here it spoken.
I think you’re right: blogging usually is strictly personal in nature. The difference is that a true weblog does both; it offers useful or intriguing information with a personal touch. Professional weblogs are quite common today, with major news outlets like The Washington Post offering weblog pulpits for their star writers.
Weblog authors are journalists, just a slightly different stripe of journalist, which I think the author of that article understands…I don’t think that the article was inclusive of LiveJournal and its bretheren.