I don’t think of myself as a “fence-sitter” on many things, but I’m in the interesting position of being a blogger in one part of my life, and a journalist in my past life, a blogger today, and (hopefully) a journalist again in the future. While I don’t know everything there is to know about journalism or blogging, I think that my own experiences – and whatever I have learned here in the seminar-workshop held by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism – can properly frame what I think of blogging and journalism.
The differences exist between both channels of communication, but rather than make the two forms different, I’m inclined to use the operative word “as.” Or “is.” Or because I can’t make up my mind yet, perhaps a slash mark in between.
For the longest time, many of us have fallen into the trap of thinking that blogging and journalism are two different things that threaten each other’s existence, or compromise each field’s reason for existing. It has always been a relationship of watching the watchdog, breathing down each other’s necks, and the relationship has always been by-and-large an antagonistic one. Traditional media has every reason to dislike bloggers for changing the media landscape from a firm foothold to a precarious position. Bloggers have every reason to dislike traditional media because of their lapses and a culture of individuality in the blogosphere.
The way I see it, blogging and journalism need not take the character of a binary opposition. Whatever conflict – real or invented – is only the result of a failure of either side to adapt to the changing dynamics of mass media. The demand lifts off from the very pages of Darwinian thinking: adapt, or perish.
