Some articles about blogging and journalism:
Earlier this year, the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University asked journalists-bloggers for essays on journalism and blogging. You can download a PDF of the result. Here are the table of contents (courtesy of Sheila Lennon's blog). The numbers refer to the page numbers these essays are found on in the magazine.:
- 61 Weblogs and Journalism: Do They Connect? BY REBECCA BLOOD
- 63 Is Blogging Journalism? BY PAUL ANDREWS
- 65 Weblogs: A Road Back to Basics BY BILL MITCHELL
- 68 Weblogs Threaten and Inform Traditional Journalism BY TOM REGAN
- 70 Blogs and Journalism Need Each Other BY J.D. LASICA
- 74 Weblogs Bring Journalists Into a Larger Community BY PAUL GRABOWICZ
- 76 Blogging Journalists Invite Outsiders’ Reporting In BY SHEILA LENNON
- 79 Moving Toward Participatory Journalism BY DAN GILLMOR
- 81 Weblogs and Journalism: Back to the Future? BY GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS
- 82 Blogging From Iraq BY CHRISTOPHER ALLBRITTON
- 85 Determining the Value of Blogs BY ERIC ALTERMAN
- 86 The Infectious Desire to Be Linked in the Blogosphere BY MARK GLASER
- 88 Readers Glimpse an Editorial Board’s Thinking BY KEVEN ANN WILLEY
- 91 A Reporter Is Fired for Writing a Weblog BY STEVE OLAFSON
- 92 An Editor Acts to Limit a Staffer’s Weblog BY BRIAN TOOLAN (Editor, Hartford Courant, no blog)
- 94 Blogging Connects a Columnist to New Story Ideas BY MIKE WENDLAND
- 95 Bloggers and Their First Amendment Protection BY JANE E. KIRTLEY
- 97 A Weblog Sharpens Journalism Students’ Skills BY LARRY PRYOR
Citizen Reporters Make the News (Wired News Online, MAY 17, 2003)
In the West, people with a journalistic bent turn to weblogs to exercise the urge to publish news or comment on events of the day.
But in South Korea, the publishing instinct is directed toward a big, collaborative online newspaper that has emerged as one of the country's most influential media
outlets.
OhmyNews is a unique experiment in “citizen journalism”: Anyone who registers with the site can become a paid reporter . . .
Blogs: Here to Stay — with Changes (Christian Science Monitor April 15, 2004)
They're hip. Influential. Out there. By one estimate, there are 2 million of them posted on the Internet around the world talking about everything from knitting patterns to the war in Iraq. But as blogs – or personal weblogs – move into the limelight, they're also coming under closer scrutiny. And the conclusions are in some ways sobering.
Except for a tiny number of blogs that have gained prominence, all this techno-chattiness remains just that: an immature form of communication that has yet to gain traction with the general public, experts say. Most are moldering in cyberspace, updated only sporadically or abandoned completely. But out of this fervid experimentation are coming some new forms of communication that are already influencing public discourse . ..
A panel discussion on blogging and journalism at the Symposium on Converged Journalism at the Univeristy of Florida. Some video content is here so you can watch the panel, if you'd like.
Watchblogs' Put the Political Press Under the Microscope (Online Journalism Review, Feb. 11, 2004)
You write the story. Your editor checks it. Your copy editor checks it. The story runs. Then your “watcher” reads it and writes a scathing critique on her Weblog. Welcome to the new workflow for prominent political reporters, as citizen bloggers and the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk Weblog have created another layer of oversight for the Fourth Estate.
The so-called “watchblogs” are generally anonymous bloggers who have taken it upon themselves to read each report from a particular presidential campaign reporter and then critique it for factual errors or bias. If they gain traction, watchblogs represent another step in the evolution of reader feedback and media criticism, and they have the potential to improve the work of journalists . . .
Me again. With a blog entry. Blogs and Journalism — will this discussion never end? October 17, 2003
…people want to argue that blogs will upend or revolutionize journalism and mainstream journalists argue that blogging isn't Real Journalism. They do this, I think, because the output of the blog form and the journalism process are similar — that is: A reader or viewer learns something new about the world as a result of exposure to both. And so bloggers and journalists believe they are all working on the same thing. They are not. Or not always.
And a related musing:
The False Promise of the Blogosphere
…many confuse journalism and blogging, either equating the two or comparing them against the other, because, to the news consumer, they may look similar. A blogger is giving me first-hand reports as Baghdad is being shelled and so is a reporter for CNN. The reporter from CNN is a journalist, ergo, the blogger in Baghdad must be a journalist. Er, not quite.
Sullivan: Blogs to replace formal op-ed style Nov. 15, 2003
Weblogs can offer journalists an alternative means of reaching global audiences while promoting reader interaction and debate, according to writer Andrew Sullivan, who keynoted the Online News Association conference on Saturday …
Blog-Tracking May Gain Ground Among U.S. Intelligence Officials (Investors Business Daily, Apr 27, 2004)
…. some analysts say U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable …
What are Webfeeds (and Why You Should Care)
Amy Gahran's primer on RSS feeds for both publisher and reader
Once you've immersed yourself sufficiently in the blogosphere, you will see the clever wit in this:
Simple Guide to the A-List Bloggers