Dear Perez, Bloggers are not Columnists by: Nikky Raney

I turned on my television and saw Perez Hilton hosting “The Bad Girl’s Club Reunion” on Oxygen. . He then introduces himself as a “celebrity gossip columnist. My jaw dropped and I could not believe what I heard. Hilton of PerezHilton.com writes news about celebrities on his blog and uses digital paint to draw things on celebrity photos. He occasionally posts the link where he found the article and he always inserts his opinion. Ironically, he will always post the link where he obtained the images he defaced, but he is not as concerned with posting the link where obtained his news. Hilton is one of the many bloggers on the Internet claiming to be columnists and citizen journalists. When is blogger considered a journalist?

Most bloggers, like Hilton, obtain news from other sources and then put in their own comments and analysis. I would consider that as someone doing a review of the news and relaying the news to others, which is something that many people do in order to let other know about the news. This is done verbally without the person calling him or herself a columnist, but when Hilton creates a blog, copy and pastes news from a source, and then gives his opinion, he considers himself a columnist? Wouldn’t that make anyone who has ever showed an article to someone else and then given commentary about the article a columnist?

Michael Lewitts of the Huffington Post has created the web site GossipCop.com . The site patrols hundreds of blogs daily in an effort to separate then fact from the fiction. The site exposes Hilton for his inaccuracies which include his reports on: Cuban leader, Fidel Castro’s death, Brad Pitt purchasing his children an extravagant gerbil run for $82,000, and Charlie’s Angel star Jaclyn Smith’s suicide; all of which were proven to be false.

Contemplating between "bloggists" and "journaloggers"

Lewitts’ says he hates what Hilton has done to journalism; “He routinely reports rumors as if they are real stories without bothering to fact-check them. Consequently, because of his tremendous reach, inaccurate gossip becomes gospel.” According to a study released by PR Week and PR Newswire, 52 percent of bloggers surveyed consider themselves journalists.

If Hilton were hired as a columnist for a web site or paper his false reports and constant defamation would certainly not be tolerated. Stephen Glass was a reporter for The New Republic , until he was fired for fabricating his articles. Glass had his stories published in numerous publications as a paid journalist, but what if Glass had made a blog and published these stories. Would the movie Shattered Glass, based on his deception of journalism, still be made? If paid journalists are responsible for adhering and following the ethics and standards, then shouldn’t bloggers calling themselves journalists also be held accountable?

The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics entails that journalists always test the accuracy of information prior to publishing, never plagiarize, be objective when reporting news, make it clear before inserting an opinion, show good taste, clarify and explain news coverage, admit mistakes and correct them promptly, etc. Although this is not legally enforceable, journalists embrace it.

Cyberjournalist.net created a “Bloggers’ Code of Ethics” based on modifying the Code of Ethics I mentioned previously. The code includes many of the previously mentioned guidelines reworded for the purposes of the web. It is recognized that bloggers are not the same as journalists, but “should recognize that when publicly publishing on their blogs they have ethical obligations to their readers, the people they write about, and society in general.”

Eweek.com is also agrees that bloggers cannot ignore basic journalism ethics. If those who call themselves bloggers are being held accountable, then why wouldn’t bloggers identifying themselves as journalists also adhere to the guidelines? Just because someone writes a blog with links to credible news sources does not make that person a journalist. Eweek.com writes, “The blogging community has often given the impression that they are totally separate from professional journalists and in some sense not subject to their ethical standards.”

Joshua Brown runs the blog The Reformed Broker, Thereformedbroker.com . He, as a blogger, recognizes that he is not a journalist and wants to make that clear to other bloggers, “There are journalists and there are bloggers. And then there are journalists who blog, there are also bloggers who turn in a piece of journalism here and there. But the two terms are absolutely not interchangeable - and that's not a slight against either camp.”

Brown defends his claim by stating, “Journalists are responsible for the originality and truthfulness of what they put out. Bloggers may feel that they are and in many cases try even harder to maintain journalistic standards, but at the end of the day, they simply don't have to.’” He ends his entry with, “So no, I don't pretend to be a journalist, even though I've written some journalism-worthy articles on this and other sites. You shouldn't either - it's just not the same thing yet.”

The title of Brown’s blog entry, “Sorry Bloggers, You Are Not Journalists,” makes me feel better. It’s great to see that someone else out there understands my argument, but that won’t change the fact that there are bloggers who are still going to label themselves as journalists.

Hilton will continue to call himself a columnist, and bloggers everywhere are going to continue to consider themselves journalists, but what matters the most isn’t the title. What matters is that the audience is able to acknowledge that what is presented on a blog may not be accurate. As long as the majority of people aren’t looking at Perezhilton.com as a primary source for news, he can call himself whatever he wants. Journalists will continue to produce news for bloggers to duplicate and comment upon, but ultimately it is up to individuals to choose what source to obtain news from, and hopefully they make the right one.

EDIT: For those who do not know, I was a paid freelance columnist for Foster's Daily Democrat in 2008, so I do know a thing or two about being a columnist.

Written by Nikky Raney @ Nikkyraney.com

Article originally posted at: THE DIGITAL LIFE WIKI