Leveling the Journalism & Blogging Playing Fields?
Interesting blogs article on BusnessWeek Online: Blogs Will Change Your Business
I found this portion of the article especially interesting. It compares the process of producing a professional journalists story vs the blog posting process. The journalists process includes iterating with experts and editors a number of times prior to launching the story (a time and cost intensive process). Meanwhile, a blogger can write a story and post it to the world within minutes (cheap & quick), followed by public dialog with interested parties (experts & otherwise) weighing in with various facts & opinions.
While I appreciate a polished story with verified facts, the conventional story creation process that journalists follow doesn't guarantee stories are any more or less accurate than the informal research process that an individual blogger may or may not go through prior to posting a blog entry. In fact, summaries of real experiences posted by real people are often far more accurate than stories edited by media types. Just because it is professionally edited doesn't make it right. Here's a good example (posted on May 5, 2005):
"HP works to beat Sun to podcasting" The fact of the matter is, it's too late. Sun's podcasting site has been up and running since at least February, 2005 (the first posting is dated February 7th).
Makes me wonder: Are professional journalists abandoning their conventional editing process in effort to get their scoop out as quickly as bloggers? If so, other than writing styles, is there really much difference between the two? My guess is: Yes, posting information via blog sites is still far more cost effective and in many cases more trusted by the average reader.
