Wong Yi Vonn => week 7 - Are bloggers Journalists?

Are bloggers journalists?

Bloggers are people who write things on blogs while Journalists are said to be:

A journalist collects and disseminates information about current events, people, trends, and issues. His or her work is acknowledged as journalism.

By: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalist

Journalists interview sources and review records to assemble, collect, and report information and explore the implications of the facts.

Journalism informs, educates, chastises:

Journalists must maintain a point of view while remaining objective about their subjects

By: http://www.princetonreview.com/Careers.aspx?cid=85

Lets try to compare and use the definition of journalists on bloggers with the Bersih Rally event took part on 9/7/2011:

1)collects and disseminates information about current events, people, trends, and issues.

Blogger does disseminates information about current events, for example:

http://albumofringo.blogspot.com/2011/07/blog-post_10.html

this is a blog spot which the blogger-Ringo, shared his/her experience on taking part in the Bersih rally. The essay was post on the blog on 10/7/2011, thus the Bersih rally event is considered a current event.

Conclusion: Bloggers and journalists disseminates information about current events, people trends and issues.

2)Journalists interview sources and review records to assemble, collect, and report information and explore the implications of the facts.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/ken-tan/translated-709-%E7%9A%84%E8%8A%B1%E7%B5%AE%E5%92%8C%E6%84%9F%E6%83%B3-something-about-709/10150236257683068

This is a short essay that is written in Facebook and about how he experience in the Bersih event. (can also be counted as blog). This essay has collected the conversation of people who talk to him on that day and what he heard.

Conclusion: Bloggers and journalists interview sources and review records to assemble, collect, and report information and explore the implications of the facts

3) Journalists must maintain a point of view while remaining objective about their subjects

Most journalists themselves could not achieve it because Bias is a human nature, it is buried deep in every human being.

For example:

In "Guang Ming" Chinese newspaper, the journalists wrote about how the police roughly treated the Bersih participants. They also wrote that the police intruded Tong Shin Hospital to chase after the remaining Bersih rally participants and even fired tear gas into the hospital.

While on the other hand, journalists of "Kosmo", a Malay newspaper, used "Only six thousand people come to cause trouble" as their newspaper front cover title. They wrote that the Bersih Rally swore to have 300 thousand people join their walk, but only so few appeared on that day. Patriot on the other hand was being praised as a group that love their country.

This can be seen clearly that even journalist could be bias and could not remain subjective about their subject., for "Guang Ming" was siding the Bersih rally while "Kosmo" was siding the government.

Conclusion: Both bloggers and journalist could not maintain subjective about their subject.

These are a few of the definition both journalist and bloggers have in common, but what differentiate these two?

= Certificate and Being Paid

Journalist are people that have undergone studies in college and takes exams to get a certified certificate. With this certificate, they will be proven as a journalist and they are certified to write a good essay compare to bloggers who didn't undergo lessons to be a journalists.

Being Paid is a major factor to differentiate between Blogger and Journalist, because Journalists will have a restriction on what they could write and they can only write what their employer assign them to do. Their work can be denied once their employer does not satisfied, thus journalist basically write articles that could pleased their employer. On the other hand, bloggers are individual that could express their feelings freely throughout writing blogs.

Therefore: Journalist are not bloggers, and bloggers are not journalist. Although they have something in common but the motivation and freedom of accomplishing a journal is not the same.