Comments

Quote :

I spent a good part of this now-fading year talking with bloggers, commiserating with news folk, goading students into establishing blogs while dipping my own cyber pen into the blog pot frequently. Back in January I believed that the difference between blogging and journalism was primarily content and style. But as December nears, I have come to realize the chief factor may be self-confidence.

Explained in academic jargon, journalists buffer their social insecurity with a pantheon of self-fulfilling ideals and professional standards that exclude regulation and intervention by exterior influences.

Or as the “real” bloggers repeatedly tell me, journalists are a bunch of gutless wimps.

When we first introduced staff blogs to the traditional journalism world, it seemed a refreshing opportunity to give more of us a try at column writing. But when the IT people toggled the “allow comments” option, all hell broke loose.

Read the rest of the post by MediaShift guess blogger Clyde Bentley

As more and more newspapers open up their stories for comments and the lines between blogger and journalism blur, do you agree with Bentley's stance? Who gets the glory? Who is out there on a limb? Bloggers aren't watched over for factual accuracy, but they are a common sounrce of breaking news and information that no one else is posting...