Over the last 12 weeks I have learnt about the importance of blogging. It has allowed me to express my thoughts on topics we have covered in the course and to record sources and information that I have gained through research along the way. I have been following a few students blogs and found it interesting to see the different approaches taken when discussing journalism topics and I enjoyed the examples provided by students to highlight what they have discussed.
I was interested to learn a bit more about blogging itself and I found a website called 'Online Journalism Blog'. After browsing the site I found a few atricles by Paul Bradshaw about journalists enaged in blogging. Bradshaw notes that as of this year, 70% of US newspapers, 85% of UK news organisations, and 44% of European news organisations were offering journalist-authored blogs, and all the signals from editors and management suggested these figures would continue to rise. This is quite significant and I can only imagine that this will be the case for Australia in the future. Bradshaw also looks at studies focusing on how newsroom cultures have reacted to the rise of the online newsroom and how news organisation blogs themselves have adopted the format. He also lists a number of advantages that journalist-bloggers identify in the blog format, including the ability to share information that does not fit in the limited news hole of the traditional media format, to incorporate more voices in their reporting, to get potentially valuable feedback from the public, and even to counteract media corporatisation. Here is the link- it's worth a look!
From my understanding, blogging adds speed, depth and informality. To these can be added new ways of pursuing stories, access to a broader field of knowledge and therefore ideas and a multimedia-interactive mindset. How much blogging has changed a journalist’s work is clearly related to the work that they do. Journalists who work outside of the institutional constraints, legacies and cultures of print or broadcast media - i.e. freelance journalists or those who worked for online-only organisations would be more likely to say that blogging has changed their work method in a big way.
Online Journalism Examples and Tips- This could be useful if you want to improve on your blogging skills!
