Some startling and remarkably ill-informed comments about blogs, this time from journalist and author Pete Hamill.
On a talk show promoting his new book, Hamill was disparaging about blogs, advising young journalists not to “waste their time” blogging. Instead they should try to get a job on a newspaper “no matter how small, where there’s an editor who will look at you copy and say this will be better if you do this. Go somewhere where you learn the craft”.
As far as Hamill is concerned, most blogs are therapy, not journalism:
People who write them, except for the professional propaganda blogs, are there for therapy. They’re there so people can feel better about having thrown a rock through a window. But they’re not useful for information most of the time. They’re certainly not good for young writers to fall into the bad habits of an unedited blog.
This is like saying that young journalists shouldn’t work for magazines because there are some trashy celeb mags or supermarket tabloids.
Blogs take many forms – some are personal journals, some are badly written, some bloggers are self-absorbed. But to dismiss an entire new form of communication is short-sighted and ignorant.
It is so obviously clear that blogging can be journalism. As part of their journalism studies at the University of British Columbia, my students wrote blogs. These took the form of a cross between commentary/analysis and beat reporting.
As Mindy McAdams writes, of course it is great to have the tutalage of a good editor. But this is a separate issue to blogging.
Filed under: Web 2.0, blogs, internet, journalism, newspapers
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