What is journalism?

I interviewed Ray Sangster, European head of Flip Video, for today's Crave. One of his points was that the Flip Video Ultra and Mino were being adopted by professional journalists while out and about, on the front lines of Afghanistan war reporting, Morpeth flooding, and Paris Fashion Week. He also talked about how the Flip is making citizen journalist even more accessible.

So what do we think about this? In the week that a bedroom blogger knocked several shekels off Apple's share price with a fake news story, it's a pretty relevant question: What is journalism?

Is it a conversation -- like this forum -- or it it a one-sided presentation of facts and opinions to the masses? Are bloggers journalists? Where does user-generated content fit in? And what about the question of authority? Thinking caps on, citizens!

In my opinion journalism is when somebody researches a topic, either using information that's readily available to them (Desk Research) or by going out and finding out information for a topic (Field Research). After finding said research, the journalist should then present their information to the public (e.g - Forum post, Blog Post, or as News) as some kind of interesting to read/listen/watch story.

Alternatively you could present your "news" in audio (Podcast) or video form. At the end of the day you're still getting information across, right?

I suppose that, depending on what the blogger is talking about, a blog could be a source of news. For example, there is no way that this is news, but some could argue that this is.

Hopefully that's not confusing. I suck at explaining what words mean.

I'm thinking ...

They love to thrash out the journalism debate on Cranky Geeks. Can't say I'm that involved with it because I'm more bothered about gadgets and boobs.

If you want to see them debate journalism, check here, here, or here

Also, because of the topic title, I had this in my head for most of the day, so I hope you're happy.

Journalism is anything that conveys an Opinion or Information to the consumer. And Yes Bloggers are Journalists but when have you ever seen the latest LOLcat or tedious twitter fart in The Guardian.

Also conversations are not really Journalistic normally just a debate it would be Journalism if someone summed up the Conversation for example.

I wouldn't say that those things cover the whole of what blogging is.

Personally I think there's a difference between 'journalism' and 'a journalist'. Journalism is the presentation of information (whether it be hard information like news, soft information like opinion, or somewhere in-between like reviewing) to a mass audience.

A journalist is someone that gets paid to do journalism, that is present information (whether it be hard, or soft, or kind of squishy and in-between) to a mass audience.

So a blog can contain journalism, but that does not make a blogger a journalist. I admit there are grey areas, like student journalists or volunteer journalists -- but they're not journalists, they're student journalists and volunteer journalists. I feel justified in saying that without being patronised because I was a student journalist (it were just like press gang), I am now a blogger, and I am also a journalist.

Medium is irrelevant (print video web etc). It must be a mass audience though.

When I say a conversation, I mean should the flow be one-sided (journalists write it, you read it, no interaction) or two-way (journalists write it, you read it and respond, journalists respond to you, a debate forms). But the fact that we're all on this forum probably answers that.

Here are my thoughts, I wanted to flesh them out more, but it hasn't happened, so I'm posting with what I have.

Before I start, please note that when I say "blogger", I mean someone who is maintaining a blog about a focused subject. I do not mean someone who is just posting meme's and stories about what they did on the weekend!

Here we go ...

Regardless of the medium, my ideal form of journalism is this: An unbiased report of facts, which are checked, with sources of information cited. In addition, I think the ideal is that the author is transparent to those facts; i.e. no bias or opinion is added. Sure it would make for dry reading, but I think a journalist's job is to report the facts, so that readers can draw their own opinions and conclusions.

Now, what's the difference between bloggers and journalists? In my naivé view, I'd say that bloggers are not necessarily trained writers, they can be anybody. While, journalists are meant to be accredited and can be upheld to certain standards. There is also a question of legality when it comes to confidentiality of sources; bloggers don't get the same protection, but by the same token they are not held up to the same standards.

Despite what I've idealistically said, many journalists do get paid for putting their opinions out there. Indeed, on a slow news day, opinions are all you may have to write about. Although I think should writers should be called Opinionists, not Journalists. Some bloggers definitely fall in to this category.

As for bloggers, there is certainly going to be blogs out there that have an agenda, and even are putting our propaganda for some third party. Although I don't think "professional journalism" is free of such "sins" either. So I don't think you can even draw this as a dividing line between bloggers and journalists.

Conversely, bloggers can certainly meet the criteria that I initially stated. So perhaps the difference between a blogger and a journalist comes down to the working environment and administrative support they have. A journalist gets a nice pay cheque, with editors to check their work. A blogger doesn't get any of this and is working on their own.

Well, I hope all that read coherently, I'm quite tired and sleepy just now.

Post Script:
Having said all that, I still don't really understand where the line between blogger and journalist is, I can just identify the two ends of the spectrum.

As I build my own blog up, I expect I'll be a mix of reviewing and opinionism. Certainly not journalism, but could it count towards me being hired as a journalist?