This article is about the frontiers between "journalists" and "bloggers."
It carries many references, including the article by Gina Barton, "What is a journalist?," from The Indianapolis Star, for Quill, published by the Society of Professional Journalists in its May 2002 issue. [Note: This article was mentioned yesterday by Scripting News after I sent an email to Dave Winer.]
As the following excerpt shows, boundaries between traditional newspapers and weblogs are blurring. A good weblog can largely be as informative as an established media.
I was reminded of Fromson's comment recently after the assassination of Dutch prime minister candidate Pim Fortuyn. American newspapers, locked into the binary way of casting domestic politics, referred to Fortuyn as a right-wing candidate. But he was openly gay and a former Marxist and who espoused a number of progressive causes. The right-wing label came from his advocacy of immigration restrictions -- a not unreasonable stance in Europe's most overcrowded country.
I looked through several newspapers for an explanation of Fortuyn's politics that confronted such obvious contradictions. I finally found the answer in a Weblog authored by Adam Curry, the former MTV "VJ" who lives in Amsterdam.
Full of knowledgeable asides, links to other blogs and commentaries on published reports, Curry put the tragedy in subtle and intelligent perspective, far outstripping anything conventional U.S. media reported.
Source: Paul Andrews, for Online Journalism Review, May 20, 2002
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