Conventional Journalism under attack?

A fellow blogger picked up this story from TimesOfIndia. He analysed the writer’s criticism towards bloggers(most of them) around the world, who according to him, are people with biased and stolen opinions about anything and everything. Thankfully, he did praise 4-5 noted bloggers in the end. The original blog is here.

Clearly the writer is upset. His point is correct about a lot of non-sense stuff on blogosphere which is harmful to the society. Sadly, in his criticism, he included millions of those who have nothing to do with bad stuff but are just trying to put their thoughts about something which is worth “their” time. Yes he is worried about blogs from a “Killer” but these things have been existing for years now. Earlier it used to be on anonymous websites, emails, chat rooms etc and now its on everybody’s(whoever is interested) RSS reader.

The way Mr. Saxena criticises everybody (all poor souls writing blogs and are not journalists) does reflect the frustration that a common journalist is confronting with. The frustration stems from the fact that people are no more relying on conventional journalism (Newspaper, TV News) and are happy with sharing common ideas and views with other people on the web through blogs and other tools like bookmarking. This is bound to happen when people have no time to read newspapers in the morning, TV news is full of c***(In my opinion), extinction of local tea stall gossips or 8:30 local from point A to point B and Internet’s attack on our lives. Internet is so overwhelming in the amount of information that people just cannot live in “consume only” mode. They have to pass on the information. Blogging is just a medium of getting that done and also making one visible by millions around the globe. Its just so tempting. This has also to do with humans being social animals. They like to be with in groups, sharing ideas, information, feedback, collaboration. All this has been translated to blogging, sharing, tagging in Internet world! This is the case with people who just write blogs and have nothing to do with journalism. I don’t think they are even related.

For degree holders (in journalism) also, blogging is a tool to be free from constraints of main stream writing. They no longer need to get their stuff proof read by anybody. And there are a lot of people doing that too. I think the writer here feels ignored. He cannot digest the fact that News, analysis, journalism are no longer confined to the boundaries of newspapers and TV. He is also not happy about people getting paid huge bucks for blogging. Let me ask, what is the harm? If people are coming back to one’s blogs or website, that means there is something relevant there. Rest earn from adds. If google wants to make money through the adds, whats the harm in paying to the blog owners. Then he must criticise Google or Yahoo too. If wordpress was owned by the writer, he would have asked all of us for a degree in journalism

I think there are zillions of ways to make this phenomenon work for us and for our country. Personally, I get lot of information from silly blogs also because they are funny and I get to know so much about people from around the world. People just put photos of their kids for example. There is no harm if I stumble upon such a blog. I don’t compare the bloggers to journalists. I do feel that main stream journalism will have to change a little. It has to embrace new tools of collaboration, sharing and publishing information. No doubt, professional journalists will have have an edge over part timers and continue to help society in difficult times like war or natural disasters. For now lets just sit back and enjoy this great phenomena of Internet. Its just like inventions of Aircraft, TV or satellites for our forefathers!