There are real differences between journalists and bloggers. Just ask Felix Salmon, the longtime financial writer, who operates successfully in both worlds. Here he is in all his glory: [http://bit.ly/salmonblogging]
“In my experience, j-school graduates tend to be quite earnest people who care a lot about the important role that journalism plays in a democracy while being less good at throwing caution to the wind and making mistakes. But as I like to say, if you’re never wrong, you’re never interesting.”
“All too often, I fear, a “formal training in journalism” just means that journalists self-censor the good and funny bits of stories that bloggers naturally latch on to. What’s more, bloggers have a much more natural voice and personality than journalists do. So it’s only natural that bloggers will get more of a “following” than some guy who writes straight-down-the-line stories for the local newspaper.”
“Then, of course, there’s the very germane fact that many highly successful bloggers didn’t get a formal training in journalism because they were too busy getting a formal training in the thing they’re writing about — business, finance, economics. The likes of Yves Smith or Brad DeLong or Simon Johnson or John Hempton are popular partly because these people know what they’re talking about and actually do it; it’s surely an advantage to be able to use first-hand rather than second-hand knowledge when you’re writing about something.”
“Journalists are often very competitive and feel that if anybody else is writing about what they’re writing about, that’s probably bad for them — especially if the rival outlet is very popular. But blogging doesn’t work like that: most of the time, when it’s done well, it’s full of external links, often to original journalism. Blogs are a great way for good journalism to get noticed, instead of being buried and ignored on page B7.”
“Overall, my feeling is that if mainstream business outlets embrace the blogosphere, they’ll do well. If they shun it, however — and paywalls are one good way to do that — then they’ll have a much harder time of things.”
