There are growing signs that blogging is a useful, if not important tool to use for those hoping to get into the media in Ireland and this can only be a good thing. If aspiring writers in any area can cut their teeth online they may find it much easier to move over to a newspaper, magazine, book or whatever else; their blog may also help expose their talents to the ones who matter most in their respective fields. So what happens then, once that young blogger breaks through to become an accomplished professional? Would their blog fall by the wayside? Would it become a personal rant? Or is there more potential in blogging than a virtual portfolio?
We’re constantly reminding ourself of the versatility of blogging and we are never short of pet-projects which prove that the medium is more than a hobby or stepping stone. However while many clever people are coming up with endless clever uses for their blogs we are seeing very slow movement within journalism, at least in Ireland.
Piaras’ post on a changing Ireland is correct, media consumption is changing in this country and blogging is positioning itself more prominently than ever. It has found a confidence in itself, bolstered by the ever growing numbers, topics and opinions. The question is, where can the journalist fit into all of this? We know that podcasts offer the potential, while largely untapped in the mainstream, to give listeners that little bit extra on top of their standard radio service but how can blogs?
Nick Robinson from the BBC shows us one possible methd. A political correspondant for the UK’s national broadcaster is busy work and is also quite interesting; the blog offers readers a personal reading of various current events, an opinion here or there, along with the odd explanation of what the politicians are really saying in their comments. In other words, it’s the kind of stuff that a political correspondant at the BBC should not be including in their reports but that many would like to hear.
For the most part a newspaper reader has only a vague idea of how those words got into their hands. Even people that understand the editorial process can be forgiven for forgetting the work involved in each story and the commitment made by each journalist. On top of this readers are forced, for better or worse, to take what they read as gospel despite the fact that they’re being told it by a person they’ve never met and don’t know. Of course, newspapers live and die by their reputations and any reader can assume print as fact until suggested otherwise but wouldn’t it be much better to see for yourself?
No one should suggest that journalists shouldn’t be trusted unless they can prove everything they say to everyone that hears it and many of the most vital stories in the world only exist because someone has been promised anonymity. With that in mind, journalists are missing a beat when they keep the less secretive aspects of the writing processes to themselves. Journalism can sometimes be jealous work too, and perhaps that’s a reason for the unneccesary secrecy but again no one expects a journalist to publish information that will damage their careers in the future, even if it is because they give away a fact or trick to another hungry writer.
So imagine if you picked up your daily paper and read a front page exclusive on a huge political scandal; to compliment it you had a backgrounder, a few comment pieces perhaps and an editorial. Would you want a ‘how I got this story’ article too? God no, it would just come across as ‘how I’m so great’ type copy. However, if you did want to find out more about the piece and you googled it, wouldn’t it be superb to find the journalists blog with all the relevant information? Maybe you want the URL for a Government report cited in the article or maybe you want to know just how long this kind of story took to complete; you could even be interested in the dramatic highs and lows, secretive meetings and scandalous facts that all melded into this ‘story of the year‘. What about being able to download or subscribe to a series of audio files which featured interviews in relation to the piece? That one quote in the paper suddenly takes on a whole new meaning amongst the wider context of a full interview. Wouldn’t it be great to find all of the above, a journalists account of the story behind the story? This kind of thing isn’t for everyone, in fact most people would rather read a story and be done with it but that’s why blogs are a perfect medium; they cater to the minority where newspapers don’t, can’t and shouldn’t.
Finally, this kind of blogging by journalists would be an invaluable tool to aspiring writers; they could read the process behind the news and get a taste for the job before they even step foot into college, they’d have a better idea of what they’re getting themselves in for and whether they’d be up to the challenge at hand.
While we can expect to see the Irish media use blogging more, or at the very least discuss it more, we can’t expect this kind of service just yet. Perhaps the coming breed of journalists will be the ones to open up the floodgates and help combine blogging with professional journalism in a way that even The Guardian and the BBC has failed to do so far.