People -- and even some courts -- have been trying to decide whether bloggers are journalists for years. An answer, as far as I can tell, has not been definitively decided.
As with most good questions, the answer is: it depends.
For my money, if one is just spouting forth one's own opinions, without reference to the source of factual information, that's blogging. One could argue that the word journalist derives from the idea of keeping a daily journal, which sounds an awful lot like what bloggers do. But let's not get lost in semantics.
Most blogs are just someone holding forth on some subject or another. Most of my posts on this blog are that. They are posted with little use of sources, little or no editing, and no bowing to some professional Code of Ethics. Caveat lector.
But other blogs -- and even a few of my posts here -- do good reporting or opinion-sharing, replete with sources. The fact that a copyeditor or fact-checker didn't touch it doesn't bother me. Based on the number of corrections and uncorrected errors in my local fishwrap, I'd have to say that most mainstream stories receive only a cursory glance from overworked and underpaid newsworkers on the copydesk anyway.
So I guess that for me the bottom line is intent. If the intent of the blogger is to simply natter on about something, then that is not journalism. But if the blogger uses reportorial techniques, such as using multiple sources and fact-checking, with the intent of presenting an accurate description, then that is journalism. Whether bloggers should be protected by shield laws and such is a tough one for me. I haven't decided yet.
What I think is funny is that for years newsworkers have been lamenting the loss of multiple journalistic voices in cities and towns around the country. Now that technology has allowed those multiple voices, many have cried, "But that's not journalism!"
I believe it is and I also believe that the sooner the MSM bring blogging into the fold the better.
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