Alot has been hinted at about the session Om Malik hosted at WordCamp. I think I gave him the hardest time publically, though there were a few such as Loren Feldman and Chartreuse who also took him to task. Om Malik is one of the finest tech writers in the industry, and my criticism of him should in no way diminish that fact. He is skillful in his words, mostly neutral in his opinions and fact-checks stuff to a fault.
But at WordCamp he was a windbag.
Going into the session with Om, I had no preconceived notions. I have never had any public disagreements with him. Not like I have with Scrivs or a handful of others. It was a clean slate and I wanted to hear his ideas on blogging and journalism.
And he blew it.
Om made some notable comments about “blogging being personal” in which I think he probably meant “blogging is opinion”, but despite having the opportunity to clarify failed to do so. He tried to make the point that bloggers are not journalists but rather the “journalists” who are bloggers simply leverage blogging tools such as WordPress.
I’m not sure whether Om has paid attention to Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs, who made waves this weekend breaking the story of the Reuters-Hezbollah photo doctoring scam. Not that LGF has done this for the first time. They were on the case of Dan Rather in 2004.
While I sat in the session at WordCamp, I questioned my own sanity. Was I hearing Om correctly? Was he simply just not making his point eloquently? Was I really hearing him try to have his cake and eat it too by talking down at bloggers and at the same time embracing blogging for himself? Was he simply trying to be diplomatic because he just recieved VC money and couldn’t come out and say any blogger could be a journalist without risking his own credibility? Why was he keeping a room of bloggers at arms distance without embracing the power and yet still trying to reap the rewards?
When I raised my hand to ask him my questions, I did so hesitantly not really knowing what was happening there. I gave him all the wiggle room I could spare to him. “Om, can you clarify what appears to be worded comments that appear to put a wall between us as bloggers and you as a journalist? Are you trying to have your cake and eat it too? Are you saying there are special qualificiatioons, such as educational requirements, to be a ‘journalist’?”
You see? Plenty of space to wiggle. Plenty of backdoors to slip back through. But did he?
Absolutely not. He obfuscated his statements even more, perhaps taken aback that anyone would question the great GigaOM. I don’t know.
The reality is that being a blogger and being a journalist are not mutually exclusive. Sure, not all bloggers are journalists. In fact, the vast majority, the long tail, comes nowhere near to journalism. And in my view “news” does not constitiute journalism. I think Opinion pieces play in as well. Look at Fox News. Or the NYT op-ed page. There’s lots of investigative reporting going on. Journalists CAN be bloggers and bloggers CAN be journalists.
I hope this is what Om was trying to say without sounding like a mainstream media sellout. He never clarified his statements.
What makes someone a journalist is not a degree, and thats what traditional media hates. Where they had to go to years of journalism school and perform all sorts of favors for upper management to get where they are, bloggers are coming in with a bang and making a real difference. See LGF. What makes someone a journalist is the accuracy, research and a fair degree of networked people to figure out what’s a good story and what is not. That’s journalism redefined.
Om missed it. Big time.
Stumble it!
About the Author: Aaron Brazell is the lead editor of Technosailor.com and a social media expert. His passion is to see companies and individuals use the internet and web technologies wisely and effectively to promote their brands and companies. He is Business Development Manager for Lijit and he worked as Director of Technology at b5media from 2005-2008 and is currently an independent consultant.
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I think that since there can two purposes and goals of a blog, reader expectation is an issue. Does the reader expect a well-researched news story or an entertaining editorial?
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I'm still up in the air on what Om meant but what he said was not what I said. And he did not clarify, to my dismay. I know he made it clear about journalists not requiring degrees, but that was just a side point.
It seemed to me (and I'm hoping Om steps in and defends himself), he was indicating that the two (bloggers and journalists) were in fact mutually exclusive. That if you wanted to be a journalist, you could not be a blogger (but you could use a blogging platform which further obfuscated the lines of delineation between the two sides).
If I were him, I would have said something along the lines of this:
There's far too much opinion in blogging to be a credible journalistic approach. Journalism requires a high degree of research, fact checking and compelling writing and while there are noted bloggers who do write in this way, most bloggers do not write at such a level and thus cannot be called journalists.
That is a suitably neutral and a highly valid point, but that's not what he said.
Aaron
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This is precisely what many journalists are missing in today's mainstream media. Do you think Fox News really checks facts? And that's just one (good) example.
The reason bloggers have become "journalists" is that the journalists became lazy, didn't verify facts, didn't investigate and let their profession open to competition.
A good journalist is a good journalist whether or not the journalism is done for your newspaper or your blog. It is a title that is earned, not granted.
Good post - thanks...
Scot
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Aaron, I think that Om had a good point although I agree he could have put it more clearly. If I were in his shoes (living on the cusp between pro-blogging and traditional journalism), I might be a tad oblique as well. You gotta give the guy a break for that reason -- it's not like Katie Couric even knows what a blog is.
Having reported the news myself back in the day, one thing that Om said that rang true to me is that real reporters, you know, do actual reporting -- they pick up the phone and talk to sources. There are "walls" that prevent sources from talking to bloggers, but guess what? These same walls exist for "real" reporters too. Part of the craft of reporting is to figure out how to break down those walls, and you can do it if you figure out how to build relationships, identify a source's self-interest, etc. People don't become good reporters because they work for the New York Times; they work for the New York Times because they (usually) are good reporters.
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I'm sorry, though, Jeffery. I don't think there has to be an obliqueness there. I think that fine line is one that is defined by the person. Perhaps I'm wrong. That's why there is conversation, but that's my opinion.
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Great article, wish I coulda sat next to you at the Conf.
Not surprisingly I also agree with you about the "obliqueness".
One on the verge of "pro-blogger-dom" doesn't and shouldn't be so obscure with his wording simply because he might lose his gig.
His usual matter-of factness is what landed him or her into that position and one shouldn't compromise because of it. Otherwise you are no better than any MSM journalist who compromises their story because they don't want to lose their 9-5 gig.
Blogging is all about saying what hasn't been said because some organization is obstructing the news or interpreting what should be news to the average Joe.
Plain and simple. Good work A
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But he also knows that certain cutting edge bloggers are blending the lines between old and new media. How can you look at someone like "conflict journalist" Kevin Sites and not be impressed? The man is blogging and risking his life to bring real and new info to people from the world's scariest hotspots. That's a lot tougher than taking potshots at someone in a comments section.
Aaron is entitled to his opinion that GigaOm was a blowhard. There's a lot of "big name" bloggers right now who just aren't that entertaining as conference speakers, I'm sure. Hell, a lot of them have really lousy blogs too.
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The fact of the matter is .. that only those bloggers with the most traffic and readership numbers should be called the TRUE journalists of this world ....
[/sarcasm off]
[rant on]
Honestly .. I was curious to know what Wordcamp was all about .. I was quite aware that it was happening and where it was happening and pretty much either know or can find out who was there ... including the people who went drinking with other bloggers, trying to getting laid, taking pictures of chicks, and other aspects of a good convention holiday trip ... but - I have yet to read anything about what really happened out there on the West Coast - at Wordcamp itself.
You'd think with my 1048 RSS feeds that I'm following in my Bloglines that I would find SOMETHING about what happened .. about blogging - about Wordcamp .. but I don't think so.
Was it about Wordpress? was it about blogging?
I sure wish there were reporters there .. Maybe someone can find time to summarize the facts and explain it to me (to quote Denzel Washington character) .. Like I was a two-year old.
Before this Wordcamp, I personally thought it was some type of grass roots blogging convetions, like those early Star Trek conventions (from a handful auditorium to wide membership and shows around the world), that gets bloggers out behind the computer and meeting face to face to discuss the future of blogging .. Well, maybe that's true .. the elite bloggers will getting together and making the rest seem less elite and in years to come we will pay to shake hands with the elite bloggers and get their autographs and picture head shots or something.
[/rant off]
Besides this one terribly wrong statement that Om Malik said .. how was the rest of his presentation? How long did he present? Did he have slides? Visual presentations? Is this a summary of Wordcamp?
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As for the Technorati links .. well, I guess I am guilty and do hide under a rock .. because I refuse to use technorati anymore - since they called me a spammer and banned all of my blogs in March 2006. If it wasn't for content thieves hacking my RSS feed but giving me source credit, nothing I do would show up in their site. Yes I'm very bitter about it. I pretty much rely on google search and Bloglines now.
What you did was a great effort for trying to describe what was going on down there .. I guess my expectations were quite different from what I was reading (by everybody as a whole, not just you). I might have to drive down there one year and see for myself - if my wife will let me.
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What was the quality level of the show, Aaron?
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Lessee. Greg Narain, Prince Campbell (chartreuse), Neil Patel, Dave Krug, Mark Jaiquith, Andy Skelton, Matt Mullenweg, Ryan Boren, Niall Kennedy, Scott Beale, Podz, Jeffrey McManus, Loren Feldman, and Lauren <del datetime="2006-08-09T19:48:33+00:00">Hoernline</del> Hoernlein to name just some... So yeah, great networking opportunity. Some people I'll go on to call friends, I'm sure.
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That's a shame for a blogger - but just plain unconvincing for a journalist.