Do Journalists Lower Standards When They Blog?
While Jon was talking about faceted blog archives at blog group, he mentioned a locker room incident where someone shut out a journalist who blogs based on the idea that journalists who blog should be treated no differently from other bloggers. The statement provides more details about the situation, thoughts about reporters who blog, and the intersection of blogging and journalism.
"Not because I don’t want this blogger in the locker room doing interviews. What I didn’t like was that the Morning News was getting a competitive advantage simply because they were the Dallas Morning News. I am of the opinion that a blogger for one of the local newspapers is no better or worse than the blogger from the local high school, from the local huge Mavs fan, from an out of town blogger. I want to treat them all the same."
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"Newspaper blogging is probably the worst marketing and branding move a newspaper can make. The barriers to entry for bloggers are non existent. There are no editorial standards. There are no accuracy standards. … Historically newspapers have set some level of standards that they strived to adhere to. By taking on the branding, standard and posting habits of the blogosphere, newspapers have worked their way down to the least common denominator of publishing in what appears to be an effort to troll for page views."
I want to take the thoughts just as thoughts and separate them from the situation so we can explore them. They’re interesting thoughts in a time when many news organizations are blogging or considering whether to blog. Does blogging really bring such consequences for news organizations? Does blogging really mean lowering standards? Can’t the media blog while maintaining their high standards? (Some bloggers are laughing while they ponder whether the media have standards.) At this point, with decreasing revenue and more people using other sources for news and not supporting news organizations, is reaching potential readers and customers through trendy technology worth the risk of a perception of lowered standards?
“Gilbert Bailon, president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, says blogging is now ‘part of the base job of being a beat reporter’ at a newspaper,” which is good news to me. Remember when there were a number of news organizations producing anti-blogging policies for their staff a few years ago? This mindshift seems like a good thing.
The lack of space in the room itself is what is primarily behind limiting who is invited. Having dealt with events that draw lots of media and media attention and having very limited space, I can understand Mark Cuban’s decision to limit who is in the Maverick’s locker room.
