In this day and age, it seems like everyone can consider themselves a political journalist. During this election season a number of new blogs have surfaced written by college students, political savants, and suburbanites. What seperates the typical blogger from a journalist is that bloggers are able to simply criticize the work of journalists and generate large audiences that also attack journalistic work. Not only is everyone a critic, but now, with the rise of blogging, everyone is a writer.
Lately, "real" journalists have been writing about how dangerous blogging can be, due to the combination of stress and a sedentary lifestyle. Reading these articles, one might be led to believe that blogging is a genuinely high-risk activity. Timothy Noah, in his Slate piece Death By Blogging, shoots down this idea. Blogging is actually one of the safest "jobs" in the world, with a death rate of 1.9 per 100,000 people. This is lower than construction (10.8 per 100,000), professional and business services (3.1), and government work (2.3). In their eagerness to grab hold of the coattails of the blogging phenomenon in this way, professional journalists have been ignoring the facts.
The line between "real journalism" and blogging looks like it is blurring. Real journalists, by ignoring facts in this manner, are becoming no different than the lawless bloggers that are often ridiculed by the mainstream media. If this trend continues, the front page of the New York Times will eventually look no different than the home page of Daily Kos or any other popular blog site. Since blogs have become so popular, and newspapers continue to lose readers at a fast rate, this may actually be good for print business. Not so much for reality.
Bloggers take their "work" too seriously. Now it looks like some real journalists aren't taking theirs seriously enough.
Lately, "real" journalists have been writing about how dangerous blogging can be, due to the combination of stress and a sedentary lifestyle. Reading these articles, one might be led to believe that blogging is a genuinely high-risk activity. Timothy Noah, in his Slate piece Death By Blogging, shoots down this idea. Blogging is actually one of the safest "jobs" in the world, with a death rate of 1.9 per 100,000 people. This is lower than construction (10.8 per 100,000), professional and business services (3.1), and government work (2.3). In their eagerness to grab hold of the coattails of the blogging phenomenon in this way, professional journalists have been ignoring the facts.
The line between "real journalism" and blogging looks like it is blurring. Real journalists, by ignoring facts in this manner, are becoming no different than the lawless bloggers that are often ridiculed by the mainstream media. If this trend continues, the front page of the New York Times will eventually look no different than the home page of Daily Kos or any other popular blog site. Since blogs have become so popular, and newspapers continue to lose readers at a fast rate, this may actually be good for print business. Not so much for reality.
Bloggers take their "work" too seriously. Now it looks like some real journalists aren't taking theirs seriously enough.
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