Reflections on a year of blogging
By Andrew Grant-Adamson • Jun 17th, 2007 • Category: JournalismLast week slipped by without my remembering that Wordblog completed its first year. The intention last June was to try to understand more about blogging but the experience has probably raised more questions than it has answered.
Blogging regularly, around 575 posts in the year, has improved my appreciation of the way journalism is changing. Where it is going remains far from clear and my feeling that one should never try to predict the future is reinforced: the unexpected always happens.
Among the words written in the past 12 months — uncounted but certainly more than 100,000 — there are contradictions and changed opinions as I have learned and thought.
Above all I have realised that blogging on the media is somewhat constrained and narrow - rather like discussing the future of politics with members of one party only. On the whole those who believe that revolutionary change is taking place and and enjoy it are those who blog. The others don’t.
Among those who blog there are broadly the radicals and the pragmatists, always an uncomfortable alliance. What is missing is the voice of those who feel that while the internet brings change there is no fundamental shift. It is all too easy to brand these people as dinosaurs or ostriches but as the those who prepare reports for organisations like the World Association of Newspapers do not generally blog, they are not part of the blog conversation.
From their point of view, the bloggers are probably nutters who believe that print will die in five years, that video rather than writing is is going to be the main means of telling stories and that anyone who does not blog is not really a journalist.
Many of the ideas expressed by bloggers, such as all journalists should be able to take still and video pictures and edit them, simply discourage the traditionalists from joining the discussion.
I don’t think there is any chance that they will join in but if the way ideas develop in the blogosphere is to be more meaningful the traditionalist views need to be taken more into account.
Personally, I find change exhilarating but I can understand those who see it as frightening, shaking their belief that they had acquired all the skills needed to see them through. Many of them have the skills which are needed just as much on the web as in print or traditional broadcast and their views are important.
During the second year of Wordblog I will seek to represent a broader spectrum of views on the changes in journalism.
Andrew Grant-Adamson is Andrew Grant-Adamson is a journalist who now teaches a new generation of writers, subs and editors at the University of Westminster.
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Something amusing for the weekend Brought to you by Current TV. Link via Seth in my del.icio.us network.Technorati tags: Flash | funny | humor | Bush | interactive | interactivity | parody | animation Reflections on a year of blogging Last week slipped by without my remembering that Wordblog completed its first year. The intention last June was to try to understand more about blogging but the experience has probably raised more …
Well done, Andrew! Making almost 600 posts in your first year, you have surely grasped the principles of blogging (heh heh). I admire your resolution to present a broader range of views, but I also wonder if doing so might dilute your own voice.
In reporting, we work to show all sides and air all viewpoints. In blogging, we have the ability to develop a more narrow and more personal path — whether we blog about journalism or restaurants or politics.
I have found that the bloggers I make sure to read most frequently are those who have a unique voice, take a personal approach, and above all, express passion for their subject matter.
Congratulations Andrew on your first year,
I think that you make a very good point about the media debate going on in the blogsphere.It is a great shame that the cross section of views are not aired
Unfortunately this will always be the case in using a relatively new medium.
Throughout history new forms of communication are generally used at first by the radical element.(After all the first newspapers were driven by those same radical elements)
But it will change and I look forward to your second year
It will take time but more
[...] Wordblog: Reflections on a year of blogging Andrew Grant-Adamson: “[B]logging on the media is somewhat constrained and narrow - rather like discussing the future of politics with members of one party only. On the whole those who believe that revolutionary change is taking place and and enjoy it are (tags: blogging bloggers blogs journalism media) [...]
“I don’t think there is any chance that they will join in but if the way ideas develop in the blogosphere is to be more meaningful the traditionalist views need to be taken more into account.” Blogosphere thats a new one
“From their point of view, the bloggers are probably nutters who believe that print will die in five years, that video rather than writing is is going to be the main means of telling stories and that anyone who does not blog is not really a journalist”. - this is for sure; just because you have an opinion, using technology, does not mean it has relervance and is logical!!