Blogs and bloggers of all stripes, whether or not they like this fact, have become part of the journalistic discourse. That hasn’t stopped many bloggers from contending that they are not practicing pure journalism and therefore are not governed by the same ethics. This is a slippery-slope argument. Many bloggers say they want to be accepted by the mainstream media as another facet of public discourse, but this seems to be a hard goal to achieve if plagiarism, a cardinal sin in the world of journalism, is brushed off as a minor offense (or no offense at all). Just because blogs are a “free medium” doesn’t mean that rules of playing fair need not apply.[Cynthia L. Webb, Filter, The Washington Post, Apr 9, 2003]

The main point of this quotation relates to how some bloggers may not attribute and source, but this is only one of the points – the ethics of sourcing and attribution. There are MANY other points where journalism and blogging overlap, and they still seem to be getting into a fight. The point is, in my view, that blogging has indeed become another way of reaching an audience, and thus, there is a place for it in the journalistic discourse. No need to fight, just understand each other.

The relationship between mainstream media (MSM) and blogging seems to almost always be rocky, no matter what. But is it really reinventing journalism, destroying journalism, or can we create a symbiosis where both can co-exist? I’d be curious to hear your opinion.

[SIDE BAR - A very good post by Rebecca picked up on these points last year, and it's still very timely/current]

Related posts:

1. New media and the adaptive capacity of journalism to evolve
2. Blogging about blogging, Twittering about Twitter…
3. The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging – Book Review