Who are you, Bloggers?

This question appears in the media again and again. Who are the bloggers? Journalists? Writers? Citizens or professionals? What rights do they have and what obligations? The online media developed so fast that a particular definition has not been found yet. Some might say that blogging is just an alternative journalism or “citizen” journalism with the same purpose and rights as “professional.” And it does make a lot of sense. Bloggers just like journalists write news stories, investigative reports, opinions, etc. In many cases bloggers act even more “journalistic” than journalists, covering significant issues ignored by the broadcast media. But at the same time it would be unfair to call bloggers journalists and to give them all the rights professional journalists have. By saying this I relay to the situation in Oregon, where Mark Bunster, the author of the political blog, tried to attend an executive session and was asked to leave. (http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/bloggers_might_be_excluded_fro.html.) Even though media is allowed to attend all the executive sessions in Lake Oswego City, as it found out bloggers are not considered to be professional journalists. Of course, the issue initiated many discussions and debates on weather bloggers can be considered as a media or not. And my answer is surprisingly…No. Although I consider myself as a big fan of independent media and maybe even a part of it (as I blog sometimes for school or my friends), I don’t think that bloggers should have the same rights as professional journalists. Just imagine if the press-conferences with politicians, musicians or any other important person would be open to everyone, who names him/herself a blogger or a citizen journalist. It would basically allow anyone to attend the event and automatically turn it into mess. It is hard to imagine the security measurements that would be required to control everyone and make sure that all important people are safe. And it doesn’t mean that bloggers are worse than professionals. I just don’t compare them to journalists at all. They are just different. Like dogs and cats. Both animals. Both beloved pets. But at the same time completely different.
Of course some of you would argue that information access should not be limited. Instead it has to be free and open to public. And I would say that it can happen only in a perfect world which doesn’t exist yet and probably will not in future. And it’s understandable. Journalists are the ones who open the information to the public, they are the platform for all public people. Yes, to some point they are the gatekeepers of the information flow. But think about it. You will see the same situation everywhere. With bank workers and doctors, lawyers and businessmen. They are all the gatekeepers of a particular information. And only they can decide whether to share it with the public or not. And the only thing the society can do is to trust all those people and to hope that they share all the important information they know.
But with the whole “bloggers as journalists” issue it is definitely more complicated. Yes, I do not consider them all as journalists. But at the same time some independent media outlets like Huffington Post or DemocracyNow deserve a right to be considered as a professional media. That’s why I think there should be a particular measurement of the whole blogosphere that would define whether the outlet can be considered as professional journalism or not. And still it is difficult to imagine how and what is even more important who will make this decsision? Well, that’s a good topic for the government to think about in order to avoid Oregon’s situation in future.