Time to put a period to what has become an inanity over the boundaries of blogger/vlogger and journalist.
Put it simply. A journalist, by definition, reports on the four Ws and one H – Who, What, When, Where and How.
A blogger/vlogger can do the same plus his or her own opinion on the issue or the news report.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddy Boy Locsin said there is no journalism on social media. True. Social media is a platform used by journalists to disseminate their content.
What has journalists kicking and screaming is the fact that bloggers are not bound by any code of ethics, unless they have been trained as journalists. True again. But it also can be said that the greater majority of journalists are also unethical because they are not being objective, which is a basic tenet of journalism.
There is also the matter of selective coverage or no coverage at all. There is the also the issue of not doing investigative work on the part of their favored politicians, which are all identified with the opposition.
It is just a vicious cycle because the only thing constant in the world is change and change has come upon us so we do not have much of a choice but to conform with the changes.
The only reason why there is an argument is the journalists identified with the liberal-leftist opposition are screaming bloody murder about networked disinformation and fake news. True. There is no discounting that both exist. But then again, it goes both ways. Both sides have trolls and influencers in their respective camps. It is part and parcel of how the game is played.
At the end of the day, it is the public who will judge because they are the consumers of the content creators. There is open competition in the marketplace of ideas. You have to be creative and innovative in order to carve your niche. You cannot just ram down an idea in everyone’s throats. You will encounter resistance in this manner.
Plain and simple when it comes to titles as well. Blogger/vloggers are so. They can be referred to as journalists if say, they do an expose’ which involves investigative work. You also have journalists going into blogging/vlogging nowadays.
Bottomline, journalists should stop being hypocrites and behaving in a very self-entitled way. They are not the gods of journalism even if they are award-winning.
We have to accept the fact that change is upon us and the platforms are there for the printed word and broadcast which allows an ordinary citizen to be a journalist following the four W and one H definition.
For journalists, it’s important to learn how to report responsibly, ethically, and with verification. Several influential journalism studies show that increasingly consumers of global news crave deep reporting and neutral, unbiased facts.
In 2021, an American Press Institute study found that 67% of Americans believe that “more facts get us closer to the truth.” In addition, the latest Digital News Report, produced by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that more than half of its global sample “said they were concerned about what is true or false on the internet when it comes to news.” The DNR study also points out that “Publishers are increasingly recognizing that long-term survival is likely to involve stronger and deeper connection with audiences online.”
The above is from the description of Reuters two-hour certificate course Introduction to Digital Journalism. It is now a reality and it is up to the individual bloggers/vloggers and journalists to be ethically responsible in the practice of their profession.
Period.
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