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10:20:00 AM EDT
Hearing Over the Rainbow -- Dan Zanes and Friends
Going Pro
One of the ways you know blogging and journaling has arrived is that there is now a class of "pro" bloggers -- that is, people who blog for pay or as part of an overall paid writing job. This class includes folks like Andrew Sullivan (who made $80,000 in a reader-supported "pledge drive" last year), Mickey Kaus, Eric Zorn (who just started a blog for the Chicago Tribune) and, um, me. And of course there are questions about how a professional overlay on what's been an electronic labor of love changes things. In his blog First Draft, Tim Porter asks:
"Each time a newspaper reporter or columnist jumps platforms and begins blogging, someone asks: Who edits the blog? If it's not edited, then is it journalism? And, if it is, then is it blogging?"
It's an interesting question. Jeff Jarvis, who straddles both print and online media, doesn't think it's an issue, but when the hallmark of a medium has been its unfettered immediacy, adding that layer of editorial oversight is not insignificant; at the very least, it means the form is changing. This is all to the good, in my opinion. Blogging and journaling are flexible enough to permit variety in expression -- it's a founding principle of AOL Journals, in fact -- and it can easily accomodate formally edited blogs along with a blog about someone's pets' funny antics.
For the record, AOL's letting me run free with this blog -- I have bosses who read it and make sure I stay focused on what I need to focus on, but I'm otherwise given enough rope for whatever I choose to do with it. I like that, except when I see how many spelling errors I make. On the other hand, this blog isn't exactly "journalism" in the traditional sense, even if it is "journaling." Were I trying to do more traditional journalism, I'd want the editing.
Written by johnmscalzi Blog about this entry |
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Personally, I blog unpaid, but I have a professional editor oversee my comment section.
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Nonsense. Any corporation that pays me to do this can't be *completely* evil.
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the bosses of the evil corporate empire are watching you john, they are most definitely watching.
8/21/03 6:36 PM