Last week’s introductory lecture in online journalism, and the impact technology has and is having on the industry, provided much food for thought. Legend has it that during the 1980s the then Sun editor, Kelvin McKenzie, suggested that, one day, the only people that would count for anything in society would be “the journalists”.
Two decades on, and the swaggering tone of McKenzie’s prognostics appear wholly misplaced. The rise of the Internet and the advent of web 2.0, have thrown the traditional media into utter disarray. RSS feeds, youtube and, above all, blogging have conspired to emancipate the public from its dependence on the established media. This newfound empowerment culminated in Time magazine bestowing bloggers with the coveted “Person of the year” award 2006. Could it be that the digital revolution may one day attain a historical significance comparable to that of the Guttenberg press?
Unsurprisingly, the process of “media democratisation” has aroused much consternation amongst the ranks of professional journalists, many of whom hold nothing but distain for this perceived amateurism. Whilst these so-called “citizen journalists” may possess a platform, very often they do not have the credentials supposedly required to validate their opinions. Admittedly, a lot of what is posted online can veer from trite musings to semi-deranged polemics, but to dismiss all blogs in this fashion would be short sighted.
Since anyone with access to a computer and the Internet can start a blog, the potential for a blogger to be in the right place at the right time is considerable. At the beginning of the Iraq war, the Guardian began profiling the postings of a Baghdad based blogger under the pseudonym “Salam Pax”.
Although not a professional journalist, Pax was able to continue updating the outside world as to the day-to-day realities of living in post-war Iraq, long after western correspondents had been forced behind the walls of the Green-Zone.
By contrast, some blogs have aroused great attention for all the wrong reasons. A Church of England clergyman was recently shown to have aired some rather unsavoury views on his personal blog causing sizeable public repercussions. Whilst an isolated incident such as this is unlikely to cause irreparable harm, it none the less illustrates the power of blogging, and the caution that should be employed when engaging in it.
The conclusion I have reached since my initiation into the online realm is that the professional journalist no longer holds carte blanche on the dissemination of information and the setting of news agendas. The only existing certainty now open to aspiring journos such as myself is that the profession/ trade is going to have to undergo a transformation of seismic proportions, and we’d better be ready for it!
