Is Internet blogging here to stay? Utah journalists weigh in

By Brooke Nelson

December 19, 2005 | If you've watched CNN, performed a Google search or checked a friend's online profile, you know you can't escape them -- they have infiltrated mainstream media. Web logs, or blogs, are a popular and relatively recent form of communication online, disseminating information at instant speeds to record numbers of readers. Blogs are online postings of opinions, thoughts and information, which readers can respond to. They are concise, topic driven and rarely censored.

But are blogs just another Internet trend that will go the way of dot-com companies? Or are they, and their creators, here to stay?

According to Mortimer B. Zuckerman, editor in chief of U.S. News and World Report, blogs shouldn't be ignored. "Blogs are transforming the way Americans get information and think about important issues. It's a revolutionary change -- and there's no turning back," he stated in a Dec. 5 editorial, claiming bloggers have become "the fifth estate."

According to Zuckerman's editorial, there were 50 known blogs in 1999. With an estimated 100,000 new blogs now appearing daily, blogs are no longer just for the technology or Internet literate. The Standard Examiner based in Ogden, Utah, links from its Web page to a community blogging forum. The site boasts 29 blogs, and Mark Shenevelt, Standard online manager, says blogs are "a good way to connect with the community.

"It basically accomplishes several aspects of our mission statement, which is to be the primary information source for our community," he said. "Any way we can reach people online is good and blogging is certainly one way to do it. The more people we get engaged, the more they find it useful and it becomes more valuable."

Many blog discussions center on local politics, Shenevelt said, and debates between the far right and far left are popular.

Credibility

But while blogs are becoming more popular, not everyone feels they are becoming more credible.

"There's a lot of misinformation [in blogs]," said Salt Lake Tribune columnist Paul Rolly. "People throw out these stories on their blogs without really doing any research or really reporting on the subject. They don't have to back up anything."

Rolly writes a staff blog (a new trend for many newspapers) for the Tribune Web site, he said, but only because his editor asked him to. He said he recognizes the dialogue between readers and journalists' blogs can create, but says blogs are doing nothing to increase journalistic credibility with readers.

"A big part of the blame has to go to journalists because they allow themselves to be pulled along by this fad and everyone just wants to jump on it because they want readers and want people to log on," he said. "It's kind of a follow-the-leader sort of thing. I think journalists are getting real lazy these days."

Staff vs. community blogs

The Tribune allows only assigned staff members to post blogs on assigned topics ranging from politics to art to family life. Readers can respond to the blogs by posting comments of their own.

Tyler Riggs, a reporter at The Herald Journal in Logan, said he sees benefits to both community and staff blogging. The Herald Journal also only allows staff members to blog, but topics are not controlled as rigidly as at the Tribune.

"The thing about staff blogs is they give some mechanism of control," he said. "[Community] blogs, they're good, too, because they let readers set the agenda and discuss what they want to discuss." Topics reporters miss can be brought into a public forum, he said.

Riggs has been blogging for the past two months as a Herald Journal reporter. His blogs include information cut from stories because of space restrictions, audio recordings of interviews and media files of voicemails left by frustrated readers.

Ultimately, blogs are viewed as a supplemental source to the reporting already happening in the print version, Riggs said, offering readers information they wouldn't get otherwise. However, blogging should never take priority over reporting duties.

"Our job is to produce a newspaper," he said. "We kind of have a rule that on any given day we spend no more than 20 minutes discussing blogs and we are advised to have all normal work done before bloggng."

Community blogs are a better fit for the Standard, Shenevelt said, but the paper also made the decision to stay away from staff blogs because "we are not a large newspaper with redundant newspaper staff."

Beyond time constraints, staff blogs present other problems for reporters. Rolly said his blog content and topic are so similar to his weekly column he's found himself scooping himself.

"To be real honest, I probably wouldn't even do it if I wasn't asked. I don't put a lot of respect in them," Rolly said. "I put a lot of effort into my columns and as a reporter I put a lot of effort into my articles, but blogs don't take that much effort. All you have to do is throw some opinion out there to keep them happy. That's not journalism."

While Shenevelt said there are no plans to change from the community blog forum, the Standard isn't opposed to staff blogs and will soon add the paper's cartoonist as a blogger. The response from the blogs has been positive, Shenevelt said, and now a popular staff member will be able to join the discussion. There are no current plans to add other staff members in the near future, he said.

"As a group, we haven't decided to go in that direction. It's too experimental. We're watching the trade press to see the effects on others that have done blogs," he said. "Some reporters have gotten themselves in hot water.

Using blogs as sources

Journalists aren't just writing blogs, they're using them as fodder for reporting. From the Dan Rather scandal to Michael and Cathryn Borden's murder (within hours, journalists perused MySpace profiles of the missing daughter and suspect), journalists are using blogs for reporting purposes.

A study conducted by Colombia University and Euro RSCG Magnet found 51 percent of journalists use blogs regularly. This is compared to the 11 percent of the general population who use blogs. The study found reporters used them for everything from locating sources to unveiling breaking news. Twenty-eight percent of journalists said they use blogs in their day-to-day reporting.

However, despite frequent blog use, only 1 percent of journalists said blogs are credible.

"The only experience I've had with blogging was with the Mark Hacking incident searching blogs for any info about him," said Wendy Leonard, a reporter at the Deseret Morning News. Most of the information she found in blogs was false.

Journalistic credibility

Despite attacks, Web loggers are fighting for credibility, and some groups insist journalistic privilege should apply to bloggers. One of these groups is the Bear Flag League -- 80 journalists who filed a document with the California court system after bloggers who leaked Apple trade secrets were subpoenaed.

Journalistic privilege should extend to Web loggers, the group argued, exempting them from having to reveal their sources.

"Bloggers should benefit from any privilege that extends to journalists," said Julie Hilden, FindLaw columnist, in a CNN editorial. "The alternative is that a court would decide, by looking at credentials and past activities, who is and who is not a journalist. In my view, that alternative is unacceptable whether the journalism is online or off."

Cara Wieser espoused similar logic in a student editorial that ran in the University of Utah's Daily Chronicle. "In my opinion, we are all journalists," Wieser said. "Who is to say one person's idea of relevant news is better than another's? And if opinion, gossip, and soft news are newsworthy enough to have their sections in mainstream publicatons, they have to be considered 'news' in blogs as well."

Rolly and Riggs disagree.

"The material that gets out on blogs may or not be fully accurate or fully reported," Rolly said. "They don't follow the standards of journalism, at least as I know them."

"Probably some of the bigger blogs could legitimately get journalistic privilege. But then you get into where do you draw the line? Who isn't a journalist?" Riggs said. "Anybody could start up a blog. You're opening a big can of worms to extend that to certain bloggers."

Blogs are particularly troublesome because so much of the information is unattributed.

"Since anybody has the opportunity to blog they can post rumors and mistruths," Riggs said. "If the general public starts to think opinions people post are the truth, then that starts to get detrimental."

Rolly said blogging effects have already been detrimental -- particularly harmful for journalists now when public trust in the media is so low.

"I just don't think journalism has the same quality it once had -- there's no question Fox has an extreme Republican bias and makes no bones about it. They don't even try to hide it," he said. "What happened to the David Brinkleys and Edward R. Murrows where they took being objective reporters and observers very seriously? It's like going back to the 19th century when newspapers were no more than tools of political parties. I see some real disturbing trends and blogging is part of that."

Riggs said political, or any other, bias in blogs is the reason he does not participate in blogs outside of the one he writes as a journalist. He will read and monitor local blogs for story ideas, but he won't post to them.

"I do read other blogs, but as far as participate in them, it's kind of hard to represent yourself as a reporter and get involved in other blogs because a lot of them are so leaned politically," he said. "That's something you shouldn't be getting involved in."

In his editorial, Zuckerman says "this new age of journalism is challenging the 'trustee model' of journalism, where journalistic professionals served as gatekeepers, filtering the defamatory and the false," and blogs have become a valuable barometer of attitudes in the world.

"I think it creates more rumors," Leonard said. Blogs can be beneficial if used correctly and as a tool for "covering a lot of ground," she said.

The Deseret Morning News does not blog on its Web site, and both Leonard and Amelia Nielson-Stowell said while some News reporters may read blogs, blogs are not a common source.

"I don't think they're prevalent," Nielson-Stowell said. "I think they're a fad, a lot of them are not accurate and there's no way to check those facts. Newspapers have a risk of being sued or publishing libel."

The difference between reporting and blogging is largely semantics, Shenevelt said. "They are similar in that blogs are a good vehicle to disseminate information to the community," he said. "But blogs by and large are specific, local and run by one individual. There's not any editorial control or journalism 'upper case' involved with following the trade rules of journalism.

"I'm not offended by people saying blogs aren't journalism."

However, Shenevelt said, the barriers blogs lack can be positive for the public if approached ethically.

Blogging and the future

Riggs said the Herald Journal staff's lack of resistance to blogging could be because no one at the news desk is over 30 years old.

"We recognize the value of the Internet to the future of media. Newspapers need to embrace the Internet and not see it as the enemy," Riggs said.

Even Rolly said blogging has some positives.

"What's positive about blogging is it allows for a dialogue between a reporter and the readers," Rolly said. "You could still do that if you could get rid of the negative aspects of the blogging with technology somehow." Whether or not this happens, Rolly said, his blogs will always be based on real reporting.

Zuckerman says blogging is here to stay and this new Internet trend has "democratized journalism by giving citizens daily and immediate access to different opinion and, sometimes, to purveyors of truly expert knowledge."

"I think'll it'll stick and the reason for that is it gives anybody who wants a voice to have a voice. Blogs take letters to the editor one step further," Riggs said. "Blogging won't ever replace things like newspapers and television news because blogs lean so much to opinion, but they won't go away because it gives a everyone a voice."

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