Interesting Evening (part 2)

The second part of the evening was supposed to be a debate about new digital media and journalism, but devolved somewhat into a narrower discussion about weblogs vs. journalism.

I and some other people got into a heated discussion with journalist Fransicsco Van Jole.  Francisco has been at the center of a dispute in the Dutch blogosphere recently between traditional media and some of the more popular Dutch blogs (nicknamed shocklogs for their content, by the way) like fok.nl, retecool.nl and geenstijl.nl.

Basically his argument yesterday was that journalism is a craft, and that it is way too easy and cheap to bash journalists, because they work really hard and check their sources and follow certain guidelines, while webloggers are just people with a keyboard and an opinion (which is often wrong and unfounded).

I repeatedly interjected and said that weblogs are just tools, just like pencils, paper or keyboards.  It is perfectly possible for somebody who follows all journalistic rules to put his output into a weblog and call it journalism, if you ask me.  But he seemed to dissagree, pointing out that weblogs show items in the order they came in, not in order of priority/importance, which is what journalists are supposed to do.  (If that is the case, I wonder if AP or Reuters dispatches on a telex can still be considered journalism?)

I'd like to offer following analogy here: weblogs are hammers.  That's right, a blog is a  hammer.  A simple tool.  Anybody can use one.  But not everybody who uses one can be called a carpenter.  Because carpentry, like journalism, is a craft.  Most carpenters are very good at what they do, and have worked very hard to gain their skills.  Mind you, there probably are many shoddy carpenters too, or incompetent ones who still style themselves as being master carpenters.

Hammers are excellent tools to bash such people, just as weblogs can be used to bash shoddy journalism.  On the other hand, hammers and weblogs can just as easily be abused to randomly bash people.

The trick is, which basher to believe?  In my view, webloggers have reputations, just like mainstream media publications.  Publish too much nonsense, and people will stop believing you.  Don't believe just anything you read on the internet, but don't believe anything that's in print or on TV either.  Media-consumers have to try to get to know the bias of their sources, and rate their credibility accordingly.

In my view, most people are capable of doing that.  The weblog-revolution (if you want to call it that) won't be so much that everybody will become a publisher, but that everybody will be much more aware of which news sources they (don't) trust and why.  Francisco seemed to dissagree with me here, by the way, saying that people are not capable of making such judgements.  When I asked him if people were dumb, he said no, but they can't make out the truth without the help of journalists (or something, it was in the bar, and it was late; and yes, this is shoddy reporting, so shoot me, I'm not a real journalist and you, reader, probably know that, thus proving my point).

Honest and hardworking journalists have nothing to fear from this reputation-based system: if they practice their craft according to their established rules, their credibility and reputation will guarantee their status in the media landscape.  But if they do shoddy work and cut corners... whammo! There comes the hammer!

(And the same goes for people who use weblogs to report news, by the way.  It works both ways.)

As to random and uninformed bashing, the best defense is the truth.  Spread your version of the story, and if it is more credible, the random basher's credibility takes a hit.  But don't base your defense on your good name alone.  Use facts, and let people decide for themselves.  It really works.  Look at the many allegations made during the U.S. presidential elections: lots of the mud that was slung by the candidates and their supporters ended up right back in their own face, with the resulting loss of credibility.

Another report of the evening can be found by Jeroen at minitrue.nl

Comments

[Carlos]

The hammer is a good metaphor. A weblog is a tool and even skilled craftsmen can make mistakes with their hammers (Radio1 and Rifo79, canard du semaine). On the other hand people with brains and good ideas not always needed the Carpenter College to write interesting and coherent articles.

An editorial staff working 24/7 is always more powerful than one individual blogger. However this doesn't rule out that this blogger once can be at the right place at the right time to trigger a revolution (or at least initiate new ideas). It's the diversity that makes the world of weblogs powerful.

[caprio]

All true. But a weblog world is a certain medium that is fit to be applied in a certain kind of environment where certain conditions dominate. Id est it is a kind of hammer that attracts a lot of people with no carpentar skills. It attracts people with no access to existing media, with no-2-low budgets, a strong desire to express their opinion, and less concern about distribution numbers.

I agree with you that a weblog is just a set of software tools, which can perfectly be used by old media, like politicians, society stars, newspapers, magazines, journalists etc. But the condition in which they thrive creates a dominating weblog scene that is dominated by the type of logs Van Jole describes.

On another note, Van Jole has an overly-idealistic impression of the traditional media, he suffers severely from wishful thinking, his favorite movie for instance is called The Wizard of Oz.

A comparison with the discussion surrounding television, recent newspaper scandals at NYTimes and ABC, the succes of tabloids like NYPost, The Sun, Bild etc, might offer him a vision of the reality of 'journalism'.

[reet]

Hi, Please change retecool.nl in retecool.com

[Pjotr]

"Publish too much nonsense, and people will stop believing you."

Almost correct, the correct thing to say would be :
And you'll end up with no longer having informed and sensible people believing you while you gather a big following that just see their fears, bigotry, racism, hate, intolerance or whatever voiced or that just support you because of their own twisted reasons.

The fact of the matter stays that most bloggers are just putting forward opinions not facts. As well as that there's lots of source usage that is very circular. As in A states something, B reads it and says see I was right, C says see B and A say it so it must be true, D alludes to the so called proof and A in the end reads D and claims victoriously that what he thought might be the case is proven to be true because there's lots of people that have proof (not realizing that the so called proof was his own opinion)

About sources in general; what some would consider reliable sources others will call zealots, and what most would call reliable sources the nutters will call liberal anti-American biased lies (even if there's content on WH pages and USA State.gov pages to prove it)