To be a journalist on the web

Apophenia raises a question: "Are Bloggers Journalists?" She answers " Wrong Question."

She stresses that anyone can name a blogger who doesn't want to be journalists. That does not lower them as diarists, nonetheless.

She proposes a change of metaphor. Paper. Which use do make people of them? To take notes, to write lists, to document their life and to publish ideas. Isn't this what obloggers do? Technically, they are two different tools. But the means is similar. It is a notepad. An Open notepad.

But if a blogguer wants to be a journalism, using a blog instead of a real paper does it make him out of the journalist world?

And how do we determine who can be a journalist?

Well, historically the selection was done on the basis of "access to the material", i.e. paper and the printing press. The institutions built themselves on this exclusive access. The institution then could tell who can be journalist. The institution had the authority to make thus because it owns the monopoly. Nobody could, only by merit, become journalist, if he/she does not have already the access to the printing press...

The commercial corporations took this right: ownership gives the authority. No independent organization can do this...

But today the access to the diffusion slashes their capacity. Several sites offer free blogs. A new way of creating an authority settles slowly. Something based on the meritocracy.

A democratic access

But let us not be too vindicatory. It is only a change of guard, not a revolution. The access to the diffusion tools carries on its slow way to democracy...

Welcome at the era of the media citizens...