[mdlug] Is MS bribing bloggers?

[allen]

Michael Corral wrote:
> 2006-12-29, Monsieur allen a ecrit:
>   
>> That argument is not logical. Politicians face the same ethics issues.
>> Does that make them journalists?
>>
>>     
I don't think so. Politicians represent the interests of their 
constituents. If the interests of their constituents conflicts with the 
truth then the truth loses. If we want evenhandedness we look to people 
who make an effort to claim evenhandedness but if we want an advocate we 
*don't* want evenhandedness, we want to win.
>> Bloggers are just people who feel like saying something, and they put
>> whatever it is they want to say on the web. That doesn't make them
>> journalists. There's a craft and a whole host of skills involved with
>> journalism (e.g. investigative techniques, reporting skills), and
>> practices that professional journalists have to abide by (e.g. peer
>> and editorial review), that bloggers don't have to deal with.
>>     
Peer review isn't for journalists, it's for academics. Editorial review 
is for the organization, to keep an employee, the reporter, on track and 
secondarily to protect the journalist from their own bad spelling, word 
usage and other professional faux pas.

Besides, the line isn't that neat and clean. Today's casual blogger is 
tomorrow's journalist when they write about the mayor taking kick-backs. 
The trappings are important, the craft and the learned skills and the 
editorial review but the core of journalism is broadcasting. Not in the 
"radio" sense but in the casting abroad of facts not obtainable by 
people who might be interested them.
>> Journalism is one of those things that I think you really do need to
>> go to school and study. I knew some journalism students when I was in
>> college, and I got an idea of the kind of things they learn that would
>> separate them from just anybody with a blog. You can get an idea here:
>> http://journalism.berkeley.edu/program/overview.html
>>     
Maybe a professional journalist benefits from a degree but the 
historical requirements are an ability to write, a desire to write what 
other people will want to read and a means of getting that writing 
before the public. I don't see that the advent of the Internet has 
changed that.