The man credited with creating Europe's first online newspaper,
Aftonbladet.se, says the "Is blogging journalism debate?" bores him.
At Africa's premier online conference,
HighwayAfrica,
Mark Comerford
from Stockholm University emphasizes that blogging is really "just a
content management system." For example, to say blogging is journalism
is like saying your telephone is journalism. It's really the content
and the stories people have to tell that's important here. Technology
is just the carrier or enhancer.
Comerford asks how new mediums and methods of production create new
forms of journalism and how mainstream media is able to use new media
forms and methods of production to alleviate what he calls "a crisis in
journalism today"?
He says technology and new media, such as blogs, can go a long way in
helping mainstream media overcome some of its weaknesses. He says some
of the problems with mainstream media are a lack of trust and
transparency. He says there is a global trend of decreasing trust in
journalists.
Comerford notes that traditional media need to tell their audience how
they arrived at their conclusions so they can follow their logic trail.
For example, readers should be able to examine the same data that a
journalist had in the process of reporting, so that readers can reach
their own conclusions. He says it's about the public making up its own
mind, not journalists making up the public's mind for them.
This is how new media is changing old media. As a model, media should
not be "paternalistic," but should use new technology and new media to
tell stories in a better, more transparent way, allowing the public a
much greater ability to trust journalists.
