Stop, You’re Both Right

By Kleinheider Posted on December 10, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Mike Byrd takes on the Nashville Scene for calling into question the journalistic skills of bloggers:

Far be it from me to pretend that all bloggers are skilled and honest people, but I have read a few who are good writers and skilled at relaying information accurately without presuming to call themselves “journalists.” Why plunge non-mainstream bloggers who may have some experience and training in interviewing, ethnography, or data collection and analysis into the hoard of thousands who are just expressing another opinion across a sea of subjectivity?

On the contrary, I’ve observed a few journalists double-load queries, ask leading and biased questions, omit lede-changing information, and directly appeal to audience emotions instead of their critical reason. And some of the journalists make too much money and have too much notoriety for such malpractice. Does that indict all journalists? No. Does that mean they should be laid off en masse? Hardly. But it does mean that “trained journalists” don’t necessarily perform well. And I’ll give the Scene denizens all such journalists.

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Tags: blogging, blogs, journalism, objectivity, subjectivity  

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