Blog Me Beautiful
Adam Smith was shocked to find out his drunken escapades in Miami had been blasted across the web at full speed and plopped straight into the lap of his boss. In this video, he seems to be surprised that his now famous resignation from the Birmingham Mail has made him a YouTube-star.
But is Smith really so surprised about his dynamic rise to one-minute stardom? I think not. Inebriated with watery American beer, Smith said to the Dutch interviewer “I’m a hard new journalist.” The statement reeks of the self-important arrogance arguably inherent in all journalists.
Aside from striking a chord with the numerous current debates about what’s going on in regional journalism, there is one little talked about point to take from Smith’s video which ties in with what Adam Tinworth, Head of Blogging at RBI, told a bunch of newly breed bloggers at Cardiff School of Journalism last week.
Blogs are not opinions. If you go anywhere near libel, that’s not a blog post!
Tinworth said.
First of all, this destroys the common myth among newbie bloggers that a blog is an online diary - a space for a splurging mindless brain vomit straight onto the net for all to see. Any initial scepticism about blogging is usually from those who think the blogosphere is just a collection of random isolated online journals – naval gazing minute-by-minute minutiae and half philosophical musings which are often better off in the closed confines of your head.
But whilst blogs which are strands of long opinions are mindnumblingly boring, Tinworth fails to point out that the desire to blog taps into one key thing which most journalists find it hard to admit - wanting to get your voice heard. Not all, but a lot of journalists want to be ‘writers’, and while this is clearly not what journalism is about, some of the initial feelings of wanting to become a journalist are tied in with wanting to share your opinion, and blogging nourishes this inner desire.
Bloggers often try and hide the fact that their ego secretly expands a little as their blog becomes increasingly popular. But the written word has been called “the window to the mind”, so a blog clearly does mirror some of your inner thoughts, and if people enjoy reading them then that is going to make you feel like what you have to say counts.
Blogging exposes the arrogant side of journalism. At Cardiff School of Journalism we are told that the born journalist is a curious, social being, interested in what everyone else has to say. But there is clearly a visible element among the bunch of new journos here that they think what they have to say is important too.
National journalists with the best blogs do not just share photos, videos and facts, they often add a comment or personal slant to the story. Blogging allows them to speak on a slightly more personal level. Noticed that over the last five years newspapers started adding cropped photos next to journalist’s columns and articles? It’s just another point in practice of how the journalist, with his blog and twitter feed, Flickr account et al, is becoming more and more of a celebrity.
Many digital cheerleaders speak of how the blog takes away the barrier between the reader and the writer. But perhaps the blogger is more concealed behind their created image than it seems. The personal brand (the online persona the writer develops through their use of various online programs) may be just a cover-up concealer of the true persona underneath – a way of enhancing the journalist’s celebrity status as a writer, who would otherwise be lost in the duller world of opinionless news.
