I struggle nearly every week with an identity problem: Am I a blogger or a journalist? Most times, I can take the easy way out and think of myself as the nouveau blogger/journalist or journalist/blogger — but which one comes first? nags my inner pigeon-holer.
Last week’s blog post (or was it a long-form piece of journalism?) on MediaShift about the blurring of the line between journalists and bloggers left out one big example: me. I often struggle with how much personal information I want to put on this blog, how much I want to make it about me and how much it is about the world outside my bubble. In this case, I probably failed on both counts, ignoring myself as an example, but then injecting myself in the sources I chose for the story.
I was criticized in the comments for using the same old tired examples of journalist-bloggers and not including enough non-journalist bloggers, not to mention interviewing only men. Fair enough, and it’s the one sin of journalists that I’d most like to change in what I do: only talking to the same group of “experts” for each story. I would like to broaden my range of interviewees and sites that I cover, and am hoping that Jennifer Woodard Maderazo as associate editor is helping to do that each week.
But back to my identity problem. My career as a journalist has jumped around from print to online publications, and my work has appeared in trade magazines, daily newspapers, email newsletters, text books, glossy magazines, glossy books, blogs, academic websites, and more. So I shouldn’t necessarily be defined by where my work appears. I don’t remember calling myself an “email writer” even though at one point it seemed like most of my work was designed for the email format.
At the moment, I am living on the border between blogger and journalist. I am a blogger who is published at a traditional media website, PBS, with most of my posts being published without an editor (such as this one). And once per week, my Digging Deeper posts are edited first by a PBS producer, and I very much appreciate that editorial filter when I am doing more in-depth work.
I prefer to post longer pieces to MediaShift, and perhaps they read more like columns than blog posts. Many people have described what I do as an online column for PBS and I rarely would correct them on that. But I also do want people to comment on my posts, and tell me when they think I’m wrong. Plus, I do update posts with more information as I get it from readers. That seems more blog-like. And I follow the discussion on various blogs to see where my posts lead.
Playing the Perception Game
Personally, I’d rather not spend my time worrying whether people think I’m a journalist or blogger or journablogger or whatever cross-breed I am. But there are times when the question does matter, and I have to consider which one I am to get what I need.
If I am going to a conference and planning to do live-blogging, then I tell them I am a blogger. But in some cases, saying I’m a blogger can have an adverse effect, similar to the problems of getting press credentials for some bloggers.
A couple years ago, I tried to get a press pass to cover the music portion of the South by Southwest conference for MediaShift. I told them I was a blogger for PBS, and their response was, “We don’t give out press passes to bloggers.” What if I had told them I was a columnist for PBS?
When I first contacted Google News about getting MediaShift into the sources included on the news aggregator, their automated response noted that “Google News does not include one-person websites in its sources.” I took that as code for “bloggers” or at least one-person blog sites. I later petitioned them to include me by pointing out that I did have an editor and was distributed via PBS. In the end, they agreed to include MediaShift.
So while the distinction between blogger and journalist (if it ever really existed) has slowly dissolved, all the infrastructure around recognizing who a journalist is — from press credentials to legal protections has changed very little. So whether I really am a blogger, a journalist or a blogger/journalist might not matter to me, but it will matter when I’m trying to get a press pass or if a judge wants to ferret out my anonymous sources.
What do you think? Does it matter what my identity is, or how people view me? If you’re a blogger/journalist, how do you deal with these issues? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Photo of dogs fighting by Raleigh St. Clair via Flickr.
View Comments (19)
I vote for "digital journalist," though i hardly need to, since that comment posted three times. Great column.
As a reporter and a blogger, I have to agree wholeheartedly with Greg Hankins, above. Amen, and well stated.
I am not a reporter, by Greg's definition am a journal-ist,a web-logger who keeps an online personal log of stuff important to me. I feel that your identity as writer does link with 'how you source your information' and as such imp to me as reader. As for how people view you, that matters too if am a new reader,a history of credibility reassures me.<:>
I also agree with Edward Itor's view there:...since we are anonymous, we have to take great care that the information that we present is accurate, and if we do interject our opinions, we try to do so in a way that our readers can easily tell our opinions from our facts.
The important issue here is Reader-trust.
I also agree with Edward Itor's view there:...since we are anonymous, we have to take great care that the information that we present is accurate, and if we do interject our opinions, we try to do so in a way that our readers can easily tell our opinions from our facts.
The important issue here is Reader-trust.
The question of earning and keeping the reader's trust is the important issue here for the author as Edward Itor points out there.
Mark, thanks for letting me know I'm not the only one dealing with this question. This is a great discussion.
I began my life as an independent journalist as simply a lark -- an offshoot from my career as a tech marketing consultant. I decided I liked reporting on conferences. I began doing that in 1997 in the form of an email newsletter, which encouraged replies and discussion. And that was long before I'd heard of anything like a blog platform. Thus, many people think of me as an early blogger, even though I didn't launch a formal blog till several years later.
In the meantime, I discovered I liked this thing called reporting and began offering my conference reports to publications, who were happy to run them on their online sites. Thus, I managed to become something of a professional journalist (freelance), since I was getting paid for these stories.
With my newfound sideline "career," I also began writing technology articles, opinion pieces, and white papers on various IT related topics -- and my earlier experience as a tech-literate marketing writer certainly helped in this regard. Such work, which became a major source of income, enabled me to also call myself an "analyst" (and an "independent" one at that, meaning at least I was self-employed if not completely unbiased).
Where am I going with all this? I don't know, but it sure is fun talking about myself! [ha, ha] I guess I'm getting to the part about becoming a blogger (in 2005), which, when it came to income...well, there was no such expectation, unfortunately! But we, of course, all know it's something one does primarily because of passion. The good news, however, is I soon learned it could lead to other good things in my consulting life.
Anyway, Mark -- back to the topic. I do have the same identity crisis you refer to when I'm requesting press credentials, only worse. Do I say I'm a blogger, a freelance reporter, or an analyst? I guess I end up saying all three many times, if the conference doesn't yet know me. Whether they think I'm crazy or not is another question... :-)
I, too, have occasionally run into a conference that says it doesn't give press passes to bloggers. But that's really rare anymore (and extremely short-sighted of them, I might add).
I, in fact, find that bloggers are now welcomed like never before, at least by technology oriented conferences. But it certainly helps to be a known blogger, with some level of readership, credibility, or perceived authority.
best regards,
Graeme Thickins
http://www.Tech-Surf-Blog.com
Minneapolis/San Clemente
What do I think? Honestly, I think you are what you are...a bloggalist or a journalogger...both meaning a combination of Journalist and Blogger. Use them how you want. In my opinion, you shouldn't worry about how others view you and what you do...just how you view yourself and what you do. As long as your quality of work is high class then no one would have any right to view you as less than you really are.
I suppose you could consider me a blogger...nothing more. And even then, I wasn't that until a few months ago, on top of that, I'm not a hardcore blogger at that. I can't really help with that last question on how I deal with these issues...except to say this, you are whatever you say you are, bloggalist, journalogger, blogger, or a journalist. Only you can truly declare what you are and want to be called, no one can chose that for you.
Your mother goes to college
It's an interesting question and one that continues to grow as more of us old-school journalists move away from print publications. On my website for journalists online, http://www.paragraphink.com, there's no consensus. Some veteran print journalists embrace the blogger label, while others reject it.