Richard Lockwood wrote:
There have been a couple of articles in the press recently which raise
the question of trust: Who do you trust more, an unaccountable 'blogger,
or the BBC?
If a blogger is trying to make a living from it, they are likely to be
directly accountable for their posts - if they write something
irrational, people will avoid their blog and they will need a different
job. If the BBC does something irrational, the director general gets
sacked and the person who did it
Dave C will have you believe that a 'blogger is more trustworthy because
he's "free" - but he's unaccountable to anyone. The whole concept of
unbiased reporting doesn't apply to 'bloggers.
I don't really think that is what he's saying.
If a blogger is trying to give the impression he is unbiased, he will be
unbiased because it is in his interest to be.
If a blogger is trying to report what happened at a local football match
but all supports the home side, it will be fairly obvious, and probably
won't affect whether you want to read it or not.
I've blogged about real life news incidents in the past, and I've always
wanted to keep my opinions and what happened clearly separate.
An example of citizen journalism - "just having a camera" -
http://tdobson.net/node/154
The rise of "Citizen journalists" is probably unstoppable, but the
decline of real, accountable journalists has been massively overstated.
Probably.
It isn't doomsday, but it is probably in the process of dropping off.
I'd say, realistically, in the UK, in the current economic climate,
there's probably 15-20 years left in traditional revenue model paper
based journalism.
In the next few years, I'd expect more bloggers becoming "celebrities" -
contemporary example: Pevez Hilton - and starting to become well known
for blogging about popular niches.
I suspect that specialist areas of journalism will remain - sailing
magazines for instance won't stop employing people to write about new
yachts and dinghies, but I suspect some of the more general publications
will need to adapt their business model or suffer consequences...
cheers,
Tim
--
www.tdobson.net
----
If each of us have one object, and we exchange them, then each of us
still has one object.
If each of us have one idea, and we exchange them, then each of us now
has two ideas. - George Bernard Shaw
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