Blogging as a journalist — there is a difference

HARTLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. — After reading a couple of more proposals, there’s another point I want to re-emphasize as we do these blogs — don’t forget that we’re posting with our journalist’s hat on.

That means while blogging does involve your personality and your opinions in certain situations, it  doesn't mean you compromise yourself as a reporter, either. The basic mission of journalism is to seek out the truth about something for your readers and that has to remain the top priority, at least when it comes to your final project and any other original reporting you plan.

I know, this is soooo 20th century. Why go to such lengths, you might ask? Well, it's all about credibility and we've seen in our text and elsewhere that establishing a credible and realible source of information is important in starting a successful blog. I understand we all have opinions about something, but when you're a professional journalist you check those at the door. Yes. No one can truly be objective. We all have biases. But you can learn how to objectively report about something and I hope you did in your basic reporting and writing class. Remember, your primary goal is reporting what and why something is going on, and if you start commenting along the way, you will lose your credibility with somebody you're trying to report about.

Of course, there's a lot of gray area here and there are many opinion-based blogs done by columnists. In this class, I want to give you enough freedom to do some of both. But you must be careful to keep whatever is opinion related separate from whatever ends up being your traditional news or feature story.

For instance, if you're doing a blog about local music and are reviewing an album or performance, that would be acceptable. Or, if your blog was on current events, and you wanted give your thoughts in post about the balloon boy and his family or about health care reform, that's fine — just then don't turn around and plan to do your final project about those topics.

In fact, you'd keep the door open to writing about those topics if you approach all your postings as a reporter, in which you seek the truth by raising questions, offering analysis and not jumping to conclusions.

This might not be an easy route to traverse to those not as familiar with journalistic principles, but since this is our approach, it's a path we, IMO, must take.

If this brings questions to mind, please feel free to e-mail me or post it here or on the “Discussion Board.”

- Chris