Does the word “blog” have an irreversibly bad connotation? We’ve had the debate rise up here, and it’s time to discuss. In Cory Bergman’s post “Blogger said Patch tried to poach him away,” the person in question, Timothy Rutt wrote:
“We’re a news site with a blogging format, and one of my regrets was putting the word “blog” in our name, because that puts the wrong emphasis on what we have evolved into.”
LR Writer Emeritus Don Day is a longtime blogger and is proud of it. He wrote:
“I ran a blog for six years and became the most trafficked blog in Idaho and won 2nd place for best blogger from the local alt weekly. The key there? I was a blogger. I broke tons of news that both the local media and radio industry press followed. Was it a news site? Sure. But it ran on blog software (like it appears your site does).”
I don’t think running on blog software automatically qualifies you for blog status. WordPress has become a powerful CMS and can be skinned to look like a “traditional” news site. In fact, I know news sites that use it. (I won’t disclose.) It’s more about what you write and how you write it. I believe LR, for example, is a blog. We tend to link to outside stories and are a secondary source for information and analysis. But I’ve also been defensive about the term, saying we’re journalists and not bloggers. Why? The term “blogger” has, like it or not, a connotation I’m not altogether proud of. When you say “blogger,” journalists are quick to think “that’s not news – that’s people navel gazing.” Or, to show it another way, there’s this famous cartoon from The New Yorker:
Copyright Cartoon Bank
Years ago, I was interviewed on ABC News, and in the lower third, under my name was one word: “Blogger.” I thought – all those years of school and professional journalism, and I’m reduced to that?
At Lost Remote, where we’ve been reporting since 1999, I like to say we were “blogging before blogging was blogging.” But that’s kind of a defensive, snooty thing to say, isn’t it? The fact is that we’ve been analyzing the news for more than ten years. Should that be held against us because we are a blog?
You are seeing more sites running Continuous News now. The first reaction when it’s presented is “that’s not news, that’s blogging.” Yet it’s news, simply presented in a river of information. Is that “blogging?” Does a site have to focus solely on original, finished reporting? Many years ago, Cory presciently told me “The future of newscasts on TV will be a summary of what was on their blog all day.” He’s coming closer to that prophecy.
When I’m told at presentations that “blogs aren’t news” (this is still a debate), I have a stock reply: “Saying ‘All blogs aren’t news’ is like looking at my kid’s finger painting and saying “All art stinks.” It’s not the tools – it’s what you do with them.
And perhaps it’s not the word, either, but what you do as a blogger that matters. Either way, it’s important to note that while news continues to debate blogs (along with the use of Twitter), those who blog or report using blog software or whatever continue to move right along.
