Another blogger vs journalist incident has created more debate about how we should be thinking about citizens who write about 'news' via their blogs. Mayhill Fowler, who writes for the OffTheBus.net blog (founded by Jay Rosen and Arianna Huffington), attended (and paid for) an Obama fundraiser and then wrote about the small-town comments he made there four days later. This NYT article details her inner turmoil as an Obama supporter vs her inner journalist. She came under fire from many in the blogosphere for even considering not posting the comments because of her admiration for Obama.
Can we please stop debating this? I like to think a new CyberNewsroom is developing here where citizens who want to 'be' journalists mingle with sources and reporters and audiences in a new layer of the public sphere. Their work is needed -- more so now than ever. But let's not confuse the expectations of these bloggers with what we want from journalists. In the end, Fowler posted Obama's comments -- as any good citizen should.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
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2 comments:
I think the fact that people were offended that this blogger waited 4 days to post the comments is crazy. Where would we be in this debate if she had decided never to post them at all? Whose job is it to inform the public about what is said at a fundraiser event? Is it the citizen journalist/ blogger who may be attending just because she supports the candidate? I agree with Sue, I think often times we forget that bloggers are not journalists. They are not held to the same standards and mainstream journalists on news programs and in the papers. What exactly can we expect from them? I don't know if we even know yet since blogging as journalism is so new.
I think it's interesting that she came under fire for both posting the comments and not considering not posting them. This blogger is stuck between a rock and a hard place as a supporter of Obama as well as a citizen journalist. She made the decision that was right for her and the debate should end there. All she was doing was telling the truth.
There are two things that stand out to me here. The first backs up Sue’s point that we have different expectations for citizen journalist and professional journalist. In class, when we discuss citizen journalist, someone always brings up that (1) we should not rely on citizen journalism for our news and (2) that they can bring a more personal touch that professional journalist can’t as they are supposed to present their story “fairly.” Bloggers, however, are not responsible to the public in the same way, giving them the option to write stories that they agree with.
The second point of interest is who makes up the blogosphere. If the people criticizing this woman are mostly Clinton or McCain supporters, then they are arguing something much differently than if that audience also includes other Obama supporters. Or they at least have an ulterior motive.
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