Are You My Identity?

This has been coming up lately. So I thought I’d take a look at MediaShift’s blog post on it: Am I a journalist or a blogger.

My answer: Both – they aren’t mutually exclusive. Every time people ask me what I do – if I’m tired and don’t want to go into it, I sigh and say I’m a “blogger.” But I know that isn’t the truth.

I work in social media (citizen journalism, network journalism, whatever you want to call it). But I am first and foremost – a journalist working in this field.

Remember: blogs are a content management system, not a genre. Journalism is a process – it can be done on paper, in video or in a blog. So if what you do is journalism – then you are a journalist.

For better or worse – we have come to conflate “blogger” with “non-journalist content producer” or “amateur” for short.

That is not the case. Give Bob Woodward a blog – and he is still a journalist. Give my mother her own print product – she is still not a journalist (sorry mom).

clipped from www.pbs.org

Am I a Journalist or Blogger?

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I struggle nearly every week with an identity problem: Am I a blogger or a journalist? Most times, I can take the easy way out and think of myself as the nouveau blogger/journalist or journalist/blogger â?? but which one comes first? nags my inner pigeon-holer.

Personally, Iâ??d rather not spend my time worrying whether people think Iâ??m a journalist or blogger or journablogger or whatever cross-breed I am. But there are times when the question does matter, and I have to consider which one I am to get what I need.

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