J-blogging: the best of both worlds?

In the past few years the amount of blogs on the internet have increased tremendously. Some of these bloggers see themselves as journalists.
Newspapers are also appointing their own journalists as bloggers.
Carolyn Meads investigates the influence of blogs on newspapers and finds out exactly what a “j-blogger” is.

There are about 200 000 000 blogs on the internet...and the number is growing.

Technorati, an internet search company counted 185 620 000 blogs on the internet in February this year. This company estimates that 175 000 new blogs are created every day.

Anyone can start a blog – an elderly tannie, a cheeky teenager or a frustrated director of a company.

According to the Techencyclopedia of the website techweb.com, a blog is an online journal in which the entries appear in reverse chronological order. This website says the word “blog” is short for “weblog” (webjournal). Blogs can be written about any subject. It can be a newsletter, a personal journal or just “ranting and raving”. Readers can comment on the entries and the blogger or other readers can reply.

The Techencyclopedia says, previously, bloggers were programmers that could design their own webpages. Today, with templates such as Blogger.com, it is possible for anyone to start a blog in a few easy steps.

Any blogger can also try to report on events like a journalist. The Addict, a blogger who’s blog, Toomuchcoffee, was nominated for the award of Best South African and Best Political Blog at the 2008 South African Blog Awards, said in an email interview with SMF there are websites such as The Observers and Pajamasmedia that collect and present the best news and commentary from blogs from all over the world. According to him, these websites act as alternative news agencies.

The Addict says traditional media such as newspapers realise the potential of this new media. “Newspapers will be spurred to move more content online to compete with bloggers,” he says.

Blogs vs newspapers

According to The Addict there are certain similarities between blogs and newspapers. Like newspapers, blog entries appear regularly. “I try to write daily,” he says. “If I miss a day or two I get emails and SMS messages that say things like ‘Where is my daily fix?’ or ‘BLOG!’” As with most blogs, you can subscribe to Toomuchcoffee and receive The Addict’s newest entry in an email as soon as he writes it. He also has an ethical code, although it is not a written one like newspapers have. It is: “Do no harm”. TheAddict also recognises differences between newspapers and blogs.

Not all bloggers have an ethical code. Shaun Oakes, whose blog was also nominated in the 2008 South African Blog Awards for the award of Best South African Blog and Best Humoristic Blog, said in an email interview with SMF: “With blogs, ethics and morals can be thrown out the window. If I am going to write something insulting or defamatory about a public figure, I always ensure that it’s incredibly insulting or defamatory, otherwise there is no point in doing it”. According to him, ethical codes restrict traditional journalists.

Renee Moodie, interactive head of Independent Online (IOL) also said in an email to SMF that blogs are different from newspapers because they are not checked by subeditors. IOL is the website of all the Independent Newspapers publications. They have recently added a blog to their website.

Oakes claims his girlfriend is his editor. “She proof reads everything I write. If the quality is not up to scratch, she beats the soles of my feet with strips of droëwors,” he says. Usually blogs are run by only one
person and there is no one to question accuracy or improve quality and style.

According to Ray Hartley, editor of the printed and online version of The Times, South African blogs as yet do not break news like traditional media. He said via email that bloggers rather report on news that they find in the traditional media. They do not just repeat the news, but comment, analyse and give their opinions. According to Hartley this is “something special”. He also says, “Some blogs are better than
others at noticing small stories that deserve more attention than they have been given by a traditional news source”.

Johan Swarts se bl0g is seen as one of the best Afrikaans blogs according to blogtopsites.co.za. He is a post graduate student in Afrikaans and Dutch at Stellenbosch University and is writing his thesis about blogs. Johan said in an interview with SMF that blogs differ from traditional media because of the personal manner in which bloggers report. Blogs of people involved in the tsunami in Indonesia, the American election and the war in Iraq, are examples of personal reporting. Bloggers also have a more intimate relationship with their readers because they communicate with them directly. “It is like a microcosm of people that I’ve never met, but still I know them very well,” he says.

Florence de Vries, a journalist for Sake24, said in an email interview that interaction is one of the advantages of blogs that newspapers do not have. She says bloggers can get ideas for future entries from the comments of their readers. Interactivity is also important according to her. If newspapers do not encourage interaction, they will be out of touch with what their readers want. “In order for them to stay relevant, newspapers will have to improve interaction,” she says.

What in the world is a j-blogger?

De Vries wrote a thesis about whether an ethical code for j-bloggers would be fitting for Die Burger. “J-bloggers” are journalists for traditional media that, due to the popularity of blogs, have been ap-
pointed as bloggers for the online version of the publication. With J-bloggers’ traditional media attempt to get the best of both worlds. These J-bloggers are journalists, with all the ethical and professional implications of the occupation, but also bloggers that can communicate to readers directly.

De Waal Steyn, multimedia editor for Die Burger, says: “A blog belonging to a newspaper is obviously different from an ordinary weblog belonging to Jannie or Sannie.” According to Steyn these blogs have to uphold the good name of the publication. He says their bloggers have to adhere to Die Burger’s ethical code.

This is the challenge for j-bloggers, because, like De Vries finds in her thesis, certain ethical concepts such as accuracy, objectivity and anonymity can be interpreted differently when it comes to blogs.

De Vries suggests that contributions by readers should be tested for accuracy. She also says: “Readers’ commentary written under a pseudonym should be seen as an anonymous source and should be handled with the necessary care”. Objectivity will also have to be handled differently, according to her, because bloggers usually give commentary. She believes traditional media will have to adjust their ethical codes due to the influence of blogs.

She personally thinks that ethical considerations are necessary where blogs belong to a specific publication, but says: “I find blogs that do not belong to a publication much more spontaneous”.

Influencial Internet

Mail&Guardian has also been influenced by the proliferation of blogs. They created the website Thoughtleader where readers can blog. There are about 170 bloggers that contribute to the site. Matthew Buckland, former general manager of Mail&Guardian Online, says on his blog that they tried to create a hybrid between the blog and the media model when they created Thoughtleader. He says: “The aim was to take the addictive features of blogging and transmute it into a new platform – with rankings, stats, trackbacks, comments and instant feedback.”

To address the problem of ethics and quality, they decided all content would go through their editor before appearing on the group blog. “It is subject to traditional gatekeeping,” Buckland says. According to him, quality content is the key characteristic of the media. He says, “Media are control freaks about their content. They should be proud of this fact.”

Some of the content generated on Thoughtleader is used in the Mail&Guardian newspaper. Buckland would like to see more print journalists blogging.

Every day The Times publishes the work of bloggers in their blogumist column. The link between their print publication and the online version is very strong. Hartley says, “We push interactivity to our Internet site and we take comments from the web and publish them in a paper to complete the interactivity circle”.

Steyn says that in the future blogs will be an “essential ingredient in the arsenal of any senior or specialist reporter”. Blogs are a way to tell the “story behind the story” and to converse with readers, he says. They hope blogs will soon play a much bigger role on Die Burger’s website.

“Newspapers will have to look at making blogs the online version of their columns, not just a cyber copy of it, but an actual extra to what has been published in the newspaper,” says Steyn.

In the time it has taken to read this article, a whole lot of blogs have been created. Readers are probably already clicking on it and writing comments. Newspapers want the same kind of interaction, but also the positive characteristics of traditional media. They believe j-bloggers can give them both.