Bloggers: No need for press passes

There’s no question that the rise of “new media” and handheld journalism has created an incredibly overlooked debate of journalist versus blogger.

Jay Rosen, of New York University, brought up this very same subject in January 2005, during a Blogging, Journalism & Credibility conference.

He said the debate of bloggers vs. journalists “is over.” At that time, however, it was just beginning. Now, it’s flourishing.

Blogs and Internet start-up companies are where people are turning for their news. They are sick of mainstream media rants and want the story told by those who can give them the news fast with some credibility, or at least a non-obfuscated bias in what they report.

The problem with media today is that there simply is one, no interactive voice in the press and, two, no modernization of an old model that’s failing.

As a result of both of these problems, the blogger took birth and is revolutionizing the way news is reported and the way news is delivered.

An April ruling in a New Jersey state appellate court said shield laws (the overbearing rules used by journalists to protect sources) don’t apply to bloggers because they’re not “real” journalists.

This under-covered story poses a threatening future to what is the future of the news. And that’s bloggers.

Look at the ever-popular Huffington Post, which was founded as a blog and is categorized as such. Their staff is bloggers who are journalists. There’s no blurring the lines. Newspaper numbers this past year dropped 8.7 percent. Every major metropolitan paper, except for The Wall Street Journal, on the top 25 FAS-FAX report dropped as much as 21 precent in circulation. Blogs, on the other hand, have grown significantly. The Huffington Post made it into the top 10 news sites in the past month and Drudge Report isn’t too far behind. (More here.)

Mainstream media fails to recognize this. And it kills them. There’s no one running to the television screen anymore to gawk over the attractive reporter stating the news. There’s also no one waiting for their Sunday newspaper because they have to read a certain reporter’s column. “Who gives a sh**, I saw that hours ago,” usually is the response when I ask someone if they’ve seen what so-and-so wrote.

This shows a very serious transition in the news business. People want their news immediately—they don’t care where it’s from. The news feed on Facebook from a friend will do just fine. The mobile app they downloaded that pops up an alert on their phone also works. The blogger who happens to (and, now, usually does) beat CNN or MSNBC or AP is most people’s now-credible source for news.

And, instead of using those people or picking their brains for ideas, media outlets usually say, “They’re just bloggers, what do they know?” (Stories broken by bloggers here.)

Apparently a lot more than professional, er, traditional journalists. After all, they’re the ones at the forefront of the online journalism movement, ultimately honored with the title of journalist.