weblogs.......shiiiiiit,

I liked the Blood article, she makes good points about the nature of what a journalistic blog is and is not, however, I feel like it’s a bit elitist of her to under fund the amateurs

The four types of blogalism she believes are valid,

• Those written by journalists.
• Those written by professionals about their industry
• Those written by individuals at the scene of a major event.
• Those that link primarily to news about current events

since I love Merriam Webster online so much lately I have brought you all their definitions of journalism If you would like to look for you self, here is the link to the journalism definition, there are five entries besides the basic one, check them all out they are interesting.

1 a : the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media b : the public press c : an academic study concerned with the collection and editing of news or the management of a news medium
2 a : writing designed for publication in a newspaper or magazine b : writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation c : writing designed to appeal to current popular taste or public interest

Look at definition 2.c, this definition tells us that any writing if it is intended to appeal to certain pop taste or public interest is journalism. Maybe I'm playing devils advocate here, and I know this specific dissection of Bloods notion is an easy target, but doesn't that make all blogs journalism, if blogs are the current most popular conduit for the transmission of ideas on the internet, and the public interest is piqued by what these amateur publishers are posting, then semantically all blogs could be considered journalism.

This statement must come with very strict guidelines; I do believe she is correct when she asserts that, Blogging links to other news sites or articles is not journalism. In my opinion the Blogs must be a authored first hand, and cannot simply be a set of links to other news media.

Am I being clear here? I hope I am, because it’s getting late and I’m feeling pooped out. What do ya’ll think?

“Is an eyewitness account journalism, and if so, when? Depending on the event? Depending on the inability of another individual to compile a more complete version of the story? Depending on the skill or training of the person writing the account? The standards used to determine when a personal recollection becomes a journalistic report are likely to vary from case to case.” (Blood)

I’m just learning about journalistic convention and standards, but how can Blood make an assertion that the talent of a writer has anything to do with defining the practice of journalism. To me that’s like using experience level as a judgment criteria to tell whether or not someone is sitting on top of the bicycle and riding. Just because he is four years old and just got off the training wheels yesterday doesn’t mean that the action and work being done cannot be defined as riding the bike. If the kid is going down the hill on two wheels, though he may be completely out of control and the only foreseeable outcome is a serious concussion with a trip to emergency to have some stones removed from his forehead, the Kid is still riding the bike.