VGMWatch tackles the "what's a blogger" question

We often get caught in the debate over bloggers versus journalists. For starters, I think we have to be clear that the definition of journalist is a rather broad one so, depending on which definition you subscribe to, bloggers either are or aren't journalists. When we post a (rather awesome) picture of a Zelda tattoo, there are no cries that such a thing isn't newsworthy (often the contrary), while a 4 hour-old press release is met with cries of "OLD" echoing acoss the comment forms. Clearly the metric for calibrating such a distinction is loose at best. So it is in this mess that Kyle Orland, of Video Game Media Watch, finds himself while answering a reader's question: "I understand that bloggers don't really see themselves as journalists per se, but what, exactly, is their role?"

Orland frames his response with two examples: one from this very blog and a series of posts (1, 2) concerning the backwards compatibility of our much-beloved Psychonauts; the other concerns the slap-fight between gaming-blog Kotaku and gaming-megasite IGN. In all, Orland presents some interesting commentary on where blogs fit into the larger gaming media and offers this rather potent distillation of our role:

If journalism is the first draft of history, blogs are the first draft of journalism. You can look into the sausage factory and see all the swirling rumors, competing theories, and developing bits of conventional wisdom that go into making a delicious story, in close to real time. This is one main reason why they've beome so popular so quickly - people love taking a peek behind the curtain to see the emperor, um, making sausage.

Orland's example illustrates both the advantages (delicious sausage) and shortcomings (what's in it?) of the format. As the most popular gaming blog on the internet, we work hard to maintain our credibility through discriminating story selection, proper sourcing, timely and transparent updates, and accountability via our open comment system. And, while we strive to keep errors to a minimum, if something is erroneous or misleading, we can count on you guys to let us know. And if it's old, we're sure you'll let us know that too.

Reader Comments (12)

They're damn right about Joystiq being a sausage fest...

One of the things I noticed when it comes to good bloggers is that they tend to draw more on emotions... weither it is humor, shock or even fanboyism induced flaming... drawing on the bloggers' or even our emotions seem to draw us in.

I see some good journalism in the national papers, and they seem to distance themselves from the issue in order to offer the topic as unbiased as possible. While that distance may be important for a professional approach, it seems to leave the story without a soul, and it leaves me as a reader somewhat distant from the issue.

Thank you Joystiq (Chris and everyone) for making 'news' fun and entertaining...

JC - I'm right there with you on the idea of bloggers showing more emotion.

And along with it comes a greater sense of a writers' personality. It's hard to connect with a "professional" journalist alot of times and I see bloggers having a big advantage in that area.

Another unique aspect of blogging is the sense of community that develops due to the nature of the internet. Sure you can e-mail a print/web journalist, but it's a totally different form of communicating than posting feedback on a blog. For me half the fun is seeing all of the different, funny, crazy, and stupid stuff that people post. So I guess all I'm trying to say is - GO BLOGS!

Seeing as how most mainstream media publications have adopted blogging in some way, shape or form, I think that journalism can definitely encompass blogging, especially if bloggers break stories. I have much respect for American journalism but I think that there has been this lingering aire of loftiness among journalists in this country. They see themselves, perhaps correctly, as playing a unique role in our society. Well, bloggers have created a unique roll for themselves, in my estimation.

Still, I get my video game news from this site. And I often appreciate the humor and, dare I say, warmth coming from the posts. Thanks!

I would not dare compare myself to a living, breathing journalist. That would be just crazy of me.

However, in the short time that I wrote for Nintendojo, I came to realize that I would much appreciate the kind of freedom it seems as if bloggers (like yourself, Chris) have in and about their respective sites. There seems to be an air of freedom, an invitation to opinion, and an open door to the less "relevant" stories from the industry out there on sites like Joystiq. It feels less robotic, and more personal. I think that's what makes sites such as this one so damn attractive for people, like myself, to frequent.

No, I don't see bloggers as anything but journalists. If I must make a game-based analogy, I feel it's quite like how Mario Kart 64 and Gran Turismo 2 are two, very, very different kinds of games... though they both still sit firmly in the racing genre. Same purpose, different method. I, personally, feel that blogging is another facet of journalism, plain and simple.

"Journalism exists in a number of media: newspapers, television, radio, magazines and, most recently, the Internet.Generally, publishers and consumers of journalism draw a distinction between reporting — 'just the facts' — and opinion writing, often by restricting opinion columns to the editorial page and its facing or 'op-ed' (opposite the editorials) page."-Wikipedia

So journalism can be online and it certainly can include opinions. Journalism is such a broad definition that anything can be considered it. I could print out a report for everybody in my class and since its something written by collecting information, it must be journalism. Same thing with art, I could consider my fecal manner a work of art, so how can video games not be?

Everybody already knows that blogging is a form of journalism, as tons of respected journalists have blogs.(Keith Olberman) C'mon joystiq, nobody believes anymore that bloggers aren't journalists.

This is old news./sarcasm

I like the sausage analogy. But it doesn't work perfectly. How would it translate to the instances where a blog site posts a story broken by a "legitimate" reporter at a "credible" news source?

Would that be like seeing a finished sausage being tossed back into the sausage mixture?

Maybe it's a cyclical sausage factory. The final product comes out of the last machine only to fall into the batch of meat byproduct at the beginning.

cringer8,

They'll put anything in sausage these days. Or didn't you know? ^_^

When did Kyle write this? 4 minutes ago?

OLD! Oldoldoldoldoldoldoldoldold!

Yeesh...

I wonder, though, if it has anything to do with the internet turning the average human's attention span into that of a gnat. Let's be honest here. All one has to do is look at advertising these days as a benchmark for human attention spans. Compare it to ads even 15 years ago and there's a marked difference.

Kyle, too, is an odd exception in the world of both journalism and gaming. I've had the privilege of meeting Kyle more than once (I knew him back when he was an upstart critic at Gamecritics.com), and can tell you as a person, his goals are somewhat different than the average blogger. Kyle IS a journalist, through and through. That's his goal, that's his life. He was running his Videogame Ombudsman long before blogging became the powerful force that it is today.

I think that Kyle uses the blog as his medium of choice, but to know Kyle as Kyle is to know a journalist.

The words of Marshall McLuhan have never rung truer: "The medium is the message."

At this point, I'm convinced that there are people who wait around blogs just to post "This is so old!" on any post of note. That alone has me almost not wanting to read comment sections at times.

So is blogging now added to the Sausage Principle? For those unfamiliar with it, it states "Those who respect the law and those who like sausage should never watch either one being made."

I actually watch the debate about bloggers being journalists with interest, but without a serious emotional attachment to either argument. I see myself as a journalist (whether anyone else does is another issue entirely), and I can see both the arguments for and against it.

Thinking about it rationally, I'd have to come to the conclusion that bloggers are journalists, when you define them as members of the media who report and react to events. It personally seems to me, though, that bloggers are slowly creating their own school of journalism, and it has yet to crystalize around a formal set of rules or a shining example (the one I hear touted is the guy behind The Daily Kos, and I would hardly call him "shining").

I think, in a couple of years, we'll finally get a better sense of what Blog Journalism really means and its real merits and flaws. Until then, while I don't travel the path myself, my best wishes for those that do.

Ah! Finally it's decided then! Joystiq's bloggers are infact Protojournalists!

So, given the experimental and fragile nature of the creature that is a protojournalist (as documented by the totally not-made-up Doctor Zeibleheimer Von Bratwurst), Joystiq - I expect no more excuses that you are just bloggers! And commentors - I expect no more whining that they are journalists!

proto(a): indicating the first or earliest or original; "`proto' is a combining form in a word like `protolanguage' that refers to the hypothetical ancestor of another language or group of languages"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Joystiq is a blog? I guess I better cancel home delivery.

I haven't read a paper or watched TV news for ages. "Regular news" is written without personality, for the masses. If I find someone (or a group of someones) I trust, who write the way I like to read (conversational), that's all I need.

For me, it comes down to who you trust.

VGMWatch tackles the "what's a blogger" question

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