Blogging reporters

The future of journalism, or more particularly the grim future of newspaper journalism, lies in the hands of technology. Newspaper readership is declining and people are turning to the Internet more and more. So it makes sense that technological improvements be made in order for the news to reach more people.

Though these improvements can pose challenges to the journalists who are trying to make best use of the new technology. Often these are ethical challenges.

An example of this is blogs, namely reporters who blog. The popularity of blogs has grown dramatically over the past few years, and now nearly anyone with access to a computer and something to say can put their thoughts online. There are few barriers to posting blogs, especially when it comes to requirements that what is posted is accurate and ethical.

With so many people today being able to blog, it seems journalists should be no exception. Though there are a few issues to take into consideration before jumping to the conclusion that reporters should be able to have blogs just like anyone else.

It makes sense to encourage people who have reporting experience to maintain blogs. The writing likely will be more accurate and better researched than a lot of what is out there.
But a line should be drawn when it comes to journalists blogging about any kind of personal issues. Reporters discussing their political leanings or personal biases, which certainly all people have, could put their skills into question.

If a journalist writes about being liberal, then readers could attack the journalist’s story about a Republican candidate as being slanted. The story might have been completely accurate and objective, but the blog gave people reason to believe it wasn’t.

Studies show the public’s skepticism of print journalism. Readers increasingly don’t view newspapers as the most trustworthy source of news. Reporters blogging about their personal lives just furthers that problem. Newspapers should make an attempt to prohibit their writers from keeping this kind of blog. At this point it’s not a matter or censorship or stifling anyone’s expression, it’s preserving the integrity of the paper that hopefully will lead to an audience that is more inclined to believe what it reads in the paper.

Though there is some value in encouraging reporters to blog. Blogs can be a valuable tool when it comes to promoting transparency.

A blog can give reporters room to be ethical in their work. They can describe how they did their reporting and how they found their sources. That is not to say they should give away everything they have worked hard to uncover so that another paper can steal the information. But rather, journalists perform a public service, so the public has a right to know how a journalist reported a story.

Many of the problems Jason Leopold ran into related to his methods for gaining information, meaning the lying he did to get what he wanted. Ideally that is not how journalism should be done.
Technology in the case of blogs can help promote ethical decisions and actions among journalists. The News about the News talked about the work that people in newsrooms put into determining how to report and present a news story.

“In our experience, newspaper people are more conscious of the risks inherent in their enterprise that readers might realize. In the newsroom . . . bright people worry intently with one another over how to handle the news, what leads to chase, how to write and present complex stories” (74).

There isn’t always space in a newspaper for a reporter to be transparent about the reporting process, but a blog allows for that, which hopefully will lead to more ethical journalism.

Readers often do not realize the work that can go into a single story. Countless decisions are made, rewriting is done and editors are consulted all to produce a 12-inch story. But the readers just get the words on the page.

The News about the News discussed New York Times reporter Doug Frantz and the story he did on Scientology. “Asked if he thought ordinary newspaper readers understood how investigative reporters worked, Frantz said, ‘I think people don’t understand the difficulty in getting information. They really think that the press conferences they see on TV are the way everybody gets every story’” (41).

A blog can help people understand the process an investigate reporter goes through. It can include the details of all the work that goes into a story, which normally wouldn’t be printed or published anywhere.