User:SKY270

Journalistic blogger Journalism has been one of the most crucial source of information all over the world. Journalists provide people by information, events and problems that going around them. They are to help others through accurate information and to expose hidden truths.( Ashley Kelly). However, nowadays, with the vast and modern technology, the Internet provides people with another type of having information through a web-blog. In fact, blogging is a way of providing information and ideas to people online. It is one of the most controversial issues, nowadays, this is because bloggers receive much attention as alternate source of information to the conventional media. This is actually because bloogers afford information to people through the Internet without any evidence about this information whether it is true or false. Yet, journalists provide people with evidence about their source of information so, people trust them and believe in their words. In fact, blogging is very interesting to bloggers because they have found it as a way of saying their opinion to the public without any limitations, while for majority blogging is not as good as bloggers see it because bloggers are not trained in journalistic investigation, they have no code of ethics and they are not limited by editors so, the information they provide may not be reliable.

Training is one of the most essential skill that a journalist should have, but in fact, bloggers don’t have this skill. This is because most of them are not involved in the journalistic world, they are not examined by professional journalists and they don’t have an educational degree, so they don’t have the ability to provide people with reliable information. However, journalists before they apply for any job, they take some course in how to make a research, how to introduce the story to the reader and to make it convencing as well. Also, they read a lot of information and they get to know every thing going around them and also they make a lot of research in order to be trained enough when they come to provide people by information. However, bloggers take the idea of spreading of information as a subject of interest. Therefore, they didn’t do any research or any surveys about their information, but they just upload their knowledge on an online blog in order to make it available to every one; and most of them don’t care about its certainaty ,whether it is write or wrong, and the victim of this play, blogging, is the reader or the receiver. This is because reader may get false information about certain thing. For example, if a blogger spread a rumor on an online blog which states that the government will minimize the wages of all the blue workers in all the governmental institutions. This will actually react negatively on the national security because people will respond in a way that disturb the national security in order to stress on the government to make the government change the role of minimizing the wages, and ,in fact, this was a rumor. According to the article “Malaysian Minister Says Don't Trust Blogs” which says” The information posted on the blog website may be something provocative, politically motivated, inaccurate and is mostly rumor floated for the interests of certain parties”, this is means that bloggers don’t have the credibility by which they can make people trust them.

Not only training makes journalists unique and professional, but also ethics plays a very important role in differentiating between journalists and bloggers. Journalists should have code of ethics in order to be able to gain people's trust. And this according to the article "What ethics should bloggers have?" which says that "All ethics codes are created for one essential purpose: to instill trust". This code actually appears to the reader in the journalist's way of writing. According to the article "What ethics should bloggers have?" which says that professional journalists should be characterized by some skills in order to apply the code of ethics. Firstly, thoroughness, which means that the journalist should have quality of information and they should get to know every thing then investigate this information then provide it to the reader. While bloggers provide their information either it is right or wrong, so they provide people with uncertain information. Secondly, journalist should be accurate about their source of information and they should provide people only with confident knowledge and events. Also, professional journalist should be characterized by fairness as they should know all people's opinion and should get different view points from different people and finally link them together and provide them to people and every citizens have the right to respond whether agree or disagree with the journalists point of view. ("What ethics should bloggers have?"). While bloggers provide their information either it is right or wrong, so they provide people with tentative information. Also, in blogging, if a person respond to a certain rumor and say that it is wrong, the majority of people may not believe on that respond. In addition, most bloggers don’t provide people by their names or their source of information and this is actually unethical because they may steal other people's knowledge and this is consider violating copy write law. According to the article " Bloggers’ Code of Ethics" which states that " Make certain that Web log entries, quotations, headlines, photos and all other content do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context", this actually advice people to not to believe in bloggers' information unless they provide their names and source of information. Finally, bloggers are not journalists because they don’t have code of ethics as journalists do.

The editorial process is one of the most essential aspect of journalism which is not an aspect of bloggers. Editors edit, review and modify on writers in order to provide people with a confident knowledge. According to the article" Writers and Editors" which states that " Editors also decide what material will appeal to readers, review and edit drafts of books and articles, offer comments to improve the work, and suggest possible titles", this means that editors play an important role in the process of writing as they work very hard in order to make the journalists provide their readers with the most fluent and accurate information they have. Moreover, journalists and editors work in unity as they cooperate with each others in order to provide people by the best. This actually happens by a process called filtration in which the editor filter the words of the journalists, the meaning and also the way it is provided with. On the other hand, bloggers are not limited as they write what they have in mind without returning back to someone who can edit or provide his opinion on a certain blog. For example, bloggers can say personal things about some families and provide them to the whole world " Most bloggers write personal reflections on a subject of close personal or professional interest. Some blogs take the form of a personal diary"(Writers and editors). In addition, bloggers are not professionals, so they really need someone to supervise on their work and they should be limited in order to provide people by the right and certain information only.

Journalists should be trained enough in journalistic investigations, they should have code of ethics and they should have a filtration process, editing, as most of bloggers don’t have any of these aspects, so they are not journalists. Therefore, bloggers should have a censorship in order to censor on their work. Also, the government should penalize those bloggers who provide anynomes blogs in order express themselves freely. Finally, bloggers should be limited in order not to say invalid information.

Citations

Kelly, Ashley. "The Role of a Journalist." 3/2/04 19/april/2007 .

"Malaysian Minister Says Don't Trust Blogs." bloggers blog 22, March 2007 18/april/2007 .

"Writers and Editors." U.S. Department of Labor August 4, 2006 18/april/2007 .

Gillmor, Dan. "What ethics should bloggers have?." Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents 19/april/2007 .

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