Recently, a journalism student from NYU discussed in a Wall Street Journal article what she thought were the differences between a blogger and a journalist. She was responding, in part, to a discussion about the topic at the South by Southwest event last month.
She talks specifically about writing for the music industry and says:
.. the consensus among music writers is that bloggers dig for new talent and ‘break’ bands quickly, while journalists carefully analyze trends and interview intensely. But I think music journalism needs more people to be hybrids of the two—bloggers with journalistic instincts to do more thorough work, and journalists with their ears to the ground to take more risks with their reporting.
Although she is talking specifically about reporting and writing about music, some of the general ideas can be applied to all bloggers and journalists. So what do you think?
Are the two titles interchangeable or do they have specific characteristics?
Do students tend to blur the line between the two?
Anyone who asks such a question is an idiot. Read Elements of Journalism by Kovach and Rosenstiel. By the end of the first chapter or two, it will become overwhelmingly clear that 99.9% of bloggers are NOT journalists.