Public information with public mentality
Some journalists come off pretty snooty about believing bloggers should not be considered in the same breath as journalists. The high and mighty attitude usually stems from journalists not wanting to be belittled into the same mold. Bloggers don’t have editors or credibility a great deal of the time, so their resources are strapped. Some blogs are just opinionated claptraps of nonsense or what someone ate for lunch, but some can actually do real journalism.
It seems that as much as journalists rubbed off on bloggers, bloggers are rubbing off on journalists. The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) just sent out an email alert today to tackle information gathering within the entire journalism community.
An unidentified senator placed a “secret hold” on a bill similar to the Open Government Act that was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. I am not so sure what exactly a “secret hold” is or how right it is that politicians should be able to keep secrets about our political process, but SPJ alerted everyone to use the resources of the entire community to call up every senator’s office and check to see who was the one to place this secret hold.
One of SPJ’s main crusades is the pursuit of expanding the freedom of information within the United States. I wouldn’t be a member if I didn’t already believe the organization was doing great things for journalism AND blogging. I also have to point out how interesting it is for them to take the citizen journalism approach. Embracing citizen journalism is the next step for the fourth estate in my opinion. If these types of efforts could be incorporated into some kind of social network of journalists online, the freedom and fast flow of information could be greatly improved.
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