Instead of hiding the editing process in an office, in blogging the process is exposed for all to see, in the form of trackbacks and comments.

Professional editing is a case of the blind correcting the blind! If writing by topical experts is editorializing, then give me nothing but editorials. The end of Professional Journalism can’t come quickly enough for me.

And which of those eyes know more about the story than the reporter? (If any of them do, why aren’t they writing the story?)

The review function of those eyes is a poor substitute for feedback and immediate competition, two things that professional journalists haven’t been exposed to very much. (Trading headlines the night before isn’t competition.)

Note that one can commit professional journalism on-line, so if it’s clearly superior, it will win. However, that takes more than “we’re professional-grade”.

What you see as a patronizing slap against bloggers, treating them as “secondary news sources,” strikes me instead as Yahoo’s attempt to serve a diverse audience. Those of us who love blogs too often forget that not everybody does. Many people find blogs annoying, unreliable, biased and sensational — the same kinds of complaints bloggers lodge against the MSM. Many more like to get their news from traditional news outlets simply because they favor that format. Others, like me, prefer a news diet that features both blogs and MSM, but we appreciate technology that helps us organize our media plates.

I have more to say at Beltway Blogroll: http://beltwayblogroll.nationaljournal.com/archives/2005/10/separate_yet_eq.php

Since I can get the opinion of mechanics who work on any of those, or any combination thereof, why is that an important question?

MSM can’t afford to give me that choice. Heck, it can’t afford to give me the choice of listening to ANY mechanic. The best that I can get from MSM is someone who MAY have talked to an appropriate mechanic.

MSM has fewer sources, not more, plus indirection. In some cases, it happens to have better sources, but that’s not a given. (If I’m interested in a securities law decision, what MSM source can match Bainbridge?)

But way more importantly we especially do NOT need legislation that effectively licenses ‘journalists’ and gives them ‘protection’ under the law. Separating bloggers from other writers is absurd and yes – dangerous. Audiences do that job quite efficiently and it’s clearly not the job of the government.

You may wonder how I can be so sure of this. Well – it’s because I include on my IM buddy list dead people. That’s right – folks who have passed on. In fact I just left a chat room with both Ben Franklin and Jacobo Timerman who both agree that desplite our confusion here it’s still America and so long as there’s breath in our collective lungs we should shout down the notion of institutional (government or religious) intervention in media of any kind.

I haven’t pinged Nixon on this subject … he’s a pain to IM with – 2 finger typist – and I just hate having the IM handle ‘trickydick’ on my buddy list … but I’ll bet you could all imagine where he might come in on the subject …

If credibility is not the big issue, what is? Would you trust a mechanic who works on Chevys to give you an honest and credible opinion on Fords or Toyotas?

Also, if all a person is looking for is “information” how does one distinguish what is the good information from the not-so-accurate? Is someone’s 6-degrees-from-the-event rant better than the first person account? Luckily, when one does a search, one can tell the difference between a screed and a first-person account (sometimes…)

And Jeff…most bloggers *are* secondary sources of news. Most are aggregators giving their particular spin on this or that issue–they don’t have sources besides MSM, don’t attend events, don’t move beyond their own little realms. There are a few who do something like reporting in a kind of grassroots local journalism, but are paltry few citizen journalist bloggers who are just the schlub in the street with no writing background whatsoever. And to claim that citizen journalism is written by the uninformed schlub with a good rant is patently misleading.

I’m seriously peeved at Dave Winer’s attitude. It’s very obvious that he’s spent way too much time in the Ivory Tower.

October 11th, 2005 at 10:16 am
“show me the line:

I think he did:

He defined professional journalism as reporting which adheres to standards of accuracy and writing subjected to an editorial process, and all done with an eye to journalistic ethics, although he said journalism often falls short of these goals.

“There is a distinction between something that has gone through an editorial process as opposed to something put up by someone that has been through none of those processes,” Thompson said.
Presumably if the content of a blog fits these conditions, then he’d say it is “professional journalism.” If not, then its just someone posting something on the web.

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That is an old distinction. Professional journalism for the most part has little credibility with the general population in today’s society.

I am what you would consider a professional journalist. I went to school. I have that piece of paper on the wall. (In my 20’s, in the TV biz)

But as a consumer all I care about is getting as much information on the topic at hand as possible. Credibility is not a big issue.

Choice is king on the internet. And, More and more news is now on an internet. People now choose what to read. Is it done by professional journalists or is it done by eyewitness accounts directly fed to your eye? Either way. . . .it’s news.

Has Ellen Knickmeyer ever planned a battle? She is the WaPo’s main journalist on the Iraq war. How can she possibly determine “how things are going”.

I might as well ask her what kind of maintenance problems an 84 Civic with 200,000 miles are normal. She doesn’t even know where the dipstick is.

She will tell me that the breaks are crap, it burns oil, the tires are bald, it is rusty.

It’s an 84 civic…of course!!

Ask my mechanic at the pub, put 2 grand into it, it will go for another 100,000 miles

JJ posted the link

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/files/_everyoneisanexpert2.pdf

to an ebook that explains a community in the works that I believe will perform the function you seek.

There are professional photographers who earn a living from their skills. Some are news photographers who go out on assignment. In addition there are many part time photographers. Some of these act as stringers who get paid if they do an assignment, but many are just casual shooters. If they happen to be at the right place at the right time to capture something newsworthy they may get it published.

So some non-professional news gathers may do real reporting on occasion and post it to blogs. But, if an organization is to run a real news operation it cannot depend on these people, it needs a group of professionals, backed by editors, researchers, and the rest of the team.

Closely reading statements or reports for missed tidbits is the realm of the independent journalist as exemplified by I.F. Stone.
Perhaps bloggers will take over this role.
Rehashing or aggregating is the role of the essayist, not of the reporter. We need to keep these roles clear, even if people tend to lump them all as journalists.

Will Linux make computers soon?
http://blog.detectivemarketing.com/2005/10/will-linux-make-computers-soon.html

Is there any place for that? If would be great.

We may not need an “editorial process,” but copy editors are still handy!

I think he did:

He defined professional journalism as reporting which adheres to standards of accuracy and writing subjected to an editorial process, and all done with an eye to journalistic ethics, although he said journalism often falls short of these goals.
“There is a distinction between something that has gone through an editorial process as opposed to something put up by someone that has been through none of those processes,” Thompson said.

Presumably if the content of a blog fits these conditions, then he’d say it is “professional journalism.” If not, then its just someone posting something on the web.