As you may gather there are significant changes taking place in the world of journalism. Or should we say advances. So many journalists are talking about the merger of digital and print operations in newsrooms it has a lot of others eyeing off space in the blogosphere.
Journalists are largely interested by this space because it allows them to publish those stories that there may not be room for in a newspaper.
Filing a blogs is a less regimented practice and is done on a more cyclical basis to suit the nature of breaking news and it's a forum of interaction.
With Fairfax forking out millions for equipment to run integrated publishing networks, there is going to be a real revolution of information delivery services for news consumers of Australian capital cities. What questions about this progress are being asked?
The most significant flips the equation around to ask are bloggers journalists? This is of particular interest to journalists who are protective of their credibility.
The question presumes news makers are a product of large media organistaions and are perhaps more special than they are.
Bloggers in the United States who broke the Monica Lewinski scandal story say if it had been left to the mainstream guys the
front-page scoop would have been missed.
Yes, we are journalists too! they protest, taunting tighly held conventions, and in the process claim industry rights, privileges and accesses.
Harvard Law School graduate John Hinderarker of Powerline, one of the most visited conservative blogs on the internet, says he Scott Johnson took to the blogosphere as an experiment after wriitng commentary for print outlets.
Powerline now gets 60,000 hits a week in the US, and is credited with publishing the 'Rathergate' story in 2004 that exposed documents critical of President Bush's National Guard Service as forgeries.
As more journalists race to file blogs on the home front the question of shield law protections will have to be answered for a guarantee of security for sources and for real growth.
While bloggers might brag of their freedom and uncensored cleverness, reality awaits the blogosphere. In years to come the new journalism will be a lot like the old, only faster and more abundant, and audiences will have to decide who's a journalist and who's not.
