Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Bloggers aren't Journalists and Vice Versa

You can't expect blogs or bloggers to follow the true rules of journalism. Heck, most journalists don't honor those rules. Blogging (although few newspaper people know it) has it's own set of rules.

One of the major offenses that have occurred in the newspapers' rush to start blogging is the unacknowledged edit. This is when a paper prints one version of an article in the printed paper or magazine but changes the content online. An egregious example happened last week when the Milford Mirror actually erased a paragraph containing a quote from the Chairman of the Board of Aldermen. You can't change history.  Another example in the same article was a date change for a meeting. It would have been preferable to have a line through the original text to indicate a change. Also there is a protocol when making changes [OR UPDATES] to an online story.

Let's try to edumacate one another.

2 comments:

  1. I've been accused of being a journalist, but I take great offense - I'm ONLY a blogger. I don't have to be even handed, as we know all journalists are. I can express my own opinions, as we know, journalists never do.

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  2. I think you may be among the very few folks who read both print and digital for a particular publication. Did the chairman draw your attention t the change? Sounds like an example of someone trying to control the message in that case.

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