Why Blogging Needs To Be Taken More Seriously in the Journalism Field

I think when we think of journalism, we tend to think of it in a more traditional sense. The big newsrooms, editorial meetings, hard news stories on the front page, and so on. There is this picture in our mind of what journalists should look like and the setting they should be in, but have we ever thought about the citizen journalists who write important news stories from the comfort of their own homes or work spaces?

I think that those who blog the news and about issues in our society are highly underrated. There have been multiple instances when bloggers produced the best journalistic pieces, even better than the mainstream media.

In 2007, Talking Points Memo was the first to break a story about US attorneys being fired. This demonstrated the power of allowing the readers to tell the story. Bloggers have also been responsible for resignations of corrupt political leaders, for example, in 2008 when former Member of Parliament, Peter Hain, was forced to resign after blogger Guido Fawkes exposed his £100,000 of donations. These are just a couple of examples of how bloggers have shown they are the true watchdogs.

Local, community journalism is probably the most trusted, compared to that of the mainstream. With local journalism, reporters get to know the community and its members. It's easier to gain connections, as well as tips if you are a well known journalist in the area. On an international scale, bloggers can be crucial sources to the mainstream media. The invasion of Iraq, The Asian tsunami, the protests in Burma in 2007, and so on. International bloggers are citizen journalists, and sometimes put themselves in danger when news breaks. These bloggers are the first to post to social media, share videos and photos of what is happening in their countries. Without their bravery, the mainstream media in the United States wouldn't have information to show their audience.

Of course when we look at citizen journalism and bloggers, we have to keep in mind that not all of them are trustworthy. Some blogs choose to post misinformation, or the blogs are meant for personal reasons only, nothing news related. However, we can not dismiss an entire community because they aren't "actual reporters." We have to respect the work they are doing and see them equally as journalists, because in actuality, they are the ones doing it right.