Champ

I’ve been following this debate about bloggers vs journalists for quite sometime. Rims of papers and loads cyber space has already been devoted to arguments and counter-arguments.

So allow me to add my bit to this clutter.

The tsunami disaster has been the biggest news story in the life of many working journalists and perhaps one of the biggest events ever covered by the any global media organisation.

However, the collective might of global media giants was challenged by simple technology—blog. And the internet David did beat media goliath…comprehensively. And victory tastes sweetest when the praise comes from your competitor.

“For vivid reporting from the enormous zone of tsunami disaster, it was hard to beat the blogs, wrote John Schwartz in NYT. (Read report)

In all my journalism years, I preached and practiced objectivity. But in a disaster like this, perhaps it is difficult to stay objective. No one wants to be. And not even the most powerful writers can capture what the writings of an affected person could portray.

I think professional reporters, harden after moving from one disaster site to another, can not feel the pain with same intensity.

But can blogging be called journalism? May be, may be not.

The important point is flow of information…it is no more one-way-flow, and I’m not talking here of interactivity. It is about being the power to disseminate news and opinion. And that is where the actual shift is being witnessed. The media organisations are loosing sovereign control over this space.

A classic example was given by Jay Rosan: “When Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and a figure in the news, wants to speak to fans, players or the community, he doesn’t do it through the reporters who cover the Mavs. He puts the word out at his weblog. For the beat writers who cover the team this is a loss; Cuban hardly deals with them anymore. Here, however, the balance of power has shifted toward a figure in the news, once known as a source. A weblog helped shift it. (Blogs of a corporate executive, and an officeholder who have done the same.)
Does this mean are we in for democratisation of media?

Well it is too premature to make a sweeping statement like this. But we are in for an unprecedented change. And as someone aptly said, “Predicting future is a dangerous business. But perhaps it is what differentiates between a well anticipated turn and an accident.”

So let me tread this path as well.

As always, I found a website which says most of the things I wanted to ….so I’ll just add a link here. Moreover, I just got a call from a friend. We are going for pubbing…Friday night after all.

Also, the link I’ve given is really well written and is really comprehensive. It covers almost all angles as well. I’m just adding some quotes from this write-up to give a decent shape to what I was writing…well that’s really the power of internet and blogging. Simple networking of thoughts!

As I’m the boss in thid place, the last word will always come from me. So…

I think for the first time in the history of journalism, the role of media organisations is under threat. And it is not only by a new technology, but by the same people who were supposed to be its audience. It is like AIDS (never wanted to find a negative example, but it is really apt). This disease attacks the very immunity system. In the same way, this attack comes from those who were supposed to be the basis of journalism.

Your audience has become your competitor!

And if media companies fail to come up with something to capture this trend, there coveted position of being informers to the society will soon be under threat.