Reading Response 2/15 – Blogging

Reading Response 2

The first reading Why Bloggers Can’t Replace the Work of Professional Journalists by Tony Rogers, raises a good point about the relationship between bloggers and professional journalists; “expressing one’s opinion is very different from doing objective news reporting. And while opinions are fine, blogs that do little more than editorializing won’t satisfy the public hunger for objective, factual information” (Rogers, 2017). I wholly agree with this statement and I believe that first obtaining news from credible, unbiased sources is extremely important. Referring to blogs should be used as a way to compare perspectives on news and other various topics– get the whole story first, then refine your opinion. The article proposes this by suggesting that blogging is used best as a supplement to professional journalism, rather than a primary source. Blogging is not a bad thing but, in my opinion, it is too subjective to replace professional journalism. However, many people believe that blogging has become so formal and developed, that it is indistinguishable from mainstream media. The second reading The Rise of the Professional Blogger by Benjamin Carlson raises the argument that because blogging platforms are becoming owned by larger news companies such as CNN, ABC, and The New York Times and individual bloggers are now being placed under the same guidelines and challenges as professional journalists, the blogging industry is becoming more credible. It will be interesting to see how the news industry will develop in the future, and how the dynamic between blogging and professional journalism will evolve.