Amanda’s Hodge Podge: Blogging???

Professional journalists in the age of the internet look as doomed as the

typewriter in the age of the computer. Local newspapers are disappearing.

National newspapers and commercial TV stations are seeing the web take

their advertisers.

Serious reporters and broadcasters offer a guarantee that what they say is

true. If they stray, their editors impose journalistic standards and

insist on objectivity. They may not have the best or fullest story or the

most vivid account, but readers should be able to assume their work is

reliable, while a blogger’s commitment to objectivity can never be

assumed. Bellow is a look at the pros and the cons of blogging:

The collective voice of the masses

A good wiki can have input from a large population and therefore the collective will provide the checks and balances that a single person or small team can not AND additional information or details not easily found.

Blogs taken as a whole (blogosphere) can represent a trend in overall opinion for a particular topic.

Published media such as newspapers and television are expected to provide verifiable sources and facts for the information they publish.

Authoritative sources such as dictionaries and encyclopedias are expected to have a rigorous method for verifying their content.

Reality Check: errors have been found in all media and publications. The next argument may be more significant.

Facts versus opinions

Wikis can include opinions in addition to content that is considered verifiable facts.

Blogs are mostly about opinions of the individual blogger.

Published media are supposed to more clearly delineate the fact from the opinion.

Authoritative sources are to only publish content that is verified as a fact.

Reality Check: all media does have a certain degree of opinion (some much more than others). Some online published journals and news shows masquerade as impartial media. Many authoritative sources do a good job of removing opinion related content.

Timeliness and Relevance:

Authoritative sources are typically unable to respond quickly to new concepts, trends, ideas, and events compared with wikis.

Published media may be faster than authoritative sources but often can not respond as quickly (think seconds and minutes) as blogs.

So the morale of the story is to be careful as to where you are blogging, what blogs you take information to be the truth from and how you use it.