Robert Scoble posted late yesterday that "Great journalists call" in reference to the fact that some reporters actually called to confirm the rumour that he was leaving Microsoft while other bloggers simply went with the story as it unfurled its way through the blogosphere, without calling.
Journalists can be bloggers. Dan Gillmor. The folks at BusinessWeek. There’s no shortage of examples. And some bloggers are journalists, subscribing to a code of ethics that demands balanced reporting, objectivity or at least fairness, verification of the facts, and, dare I say it, Truth. I’ll leave you all to find your own examples here — anything I do will leave someone’s favorite out, and then everyone will focus on that rather than my point.
Just having a blog does not make someone a journalist. Even if they happen to break the news.
And before the citizen journalist advocates get up in arms, I *do* think citizens can be journalists. But not simply because they want to be or say they are. A citizen journalist has to do the same job we expect from a reporter from the daily paper. Fair and balanced reporting. Check the facts. Check your spelling or get a copy editor to do it for you.
Break the news right, you can call yourself a journalist. Spread a rumour? That’s gossip. Nothing wrong with doing that on your blog if you want to. It is your blog.
But reporting a rumour is not telling the story. Let’s not confuse the two.
Tags: Robert Scoble, journalism, citizen journalism, PR, public relations