(updated) Zeitgeist: Why Blogging v. Traditional Journalism is More than That

How do you explain New Media to Old Media? The past couple of days have been about the whole blogging v. traditional journalism bit (well that, and the whole MSFT+YHOO merger break down). Fellow bloggers like @jester1225 in “Confessions of a ‘New Media’ Heretic (or, the jester-in-exile throws yet another gauntlet before the MSM ‘priest caste’),” J in “Thoughts on blogging v. traditional journalism,” DJB in Talk About Kettles Calling Pots Black are all must read posts on blogging v. traditional journalism. @digitalfilipino's tweet: “Blog readers are not fools. They discern, can detect bullshit, and challenge a blogger's point of view. Best, they can decide not to read u,” sums it all up really. As I agree with their points of view, I must posit that this is more than just about blogging v. traditional journalism. This is about misconceptions about New Media vis-a-vis Old Media.

The Internet and one of its side effects--- New Media is disruptive. It whacks the old paradigm of traditionalists and sends it spiraling in all sorts of direction. This is our 21st century equivalent of what the printing press did, way back when. It is like saying the world is round and not flat. Whether you are a Music mogul, Hollywood-type, or in the business of news, even novelists, The Internet and New Media has turned your world upside down. That scares people.

Most traditionalists can’t understand that The Internet and New Media by extension, is first about the consumer being the producer. When once, the epicenter was say a newspaper or a television station while today, each blogger, every podcaster, each twitter, every flickr feed and each podcast is a generator of content. New Media’s myriad form like blogs, wikis, flickr feeds, podcasts--- they’re a social network on its own.

A big disruption is the subjective idea of what “the truth” is. Take: blogs and wikis. They are accused of “masterminding an agenda.” Of course they have an agenda: the purpose of blogs and wikis is as diverse as the people writing or making them. Some write it the way they’d write a diary, which is perfectly fine for their audience. Some blog their social commentary like I do. Some talk about technology and the intricate details of which. Heck, some blog about un-boxing the totally newest gadget, which is totally cool in my book. And some wikis like Wikipedia are often subject to scrutiny while Wookiepedia is perhaps the greatest resource of Star Wars data on The Internet. And on one hand, a blog or a wiki, no matter how technical, or frivolous, or serious or funny is a social network in itself.

Blogging can’t be synonymous to a newspaper article or a journal or an opinion page column, while blogs can be all those, it is more. Take MobLogic’s political and social commentary. Lindsay Campbell and her crew blog about issues that interest them but both in video and text form like this Outsourcing the Government (related blog post "animob" by Amanda Elend):

Is Lindsay’s take different from say traditional commentary on national television? It is undoubtedly a video blog. She interacts with her audience and creates a conversation, like with this on Global Food Shortage and leaves her viewers thinking for themselves:

I’ve raved about Lindsay and MobLogic so many times, I posit to say, MobLogic.tv is perhaps the best example of what a video blog is and should be.

What about @alanatylor’s interview (not scientific of course) with the man on the street about what the various social networking sites? Is this not a form of video blogging?

She blogs what interests her like flowers and posts things like “The Twitter Song”:

Filipino blogger @LaTtEX’s blog on the other hand is degrees more serious than the lighter toned blog of @alanatylor but they are no different in that they both blog what interests them. In fact, recently he had some trouble when he commented strongly on problems with Cebu Pacific and their software provider, Navitaire.

How about the awesomeness of Wallstrip? The show is about financial news but in pop culture form. Here recently, they gave their latest take on Apple:

How about the show’s video on jeweler Tiffany, which was a parody of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, which is truly one of the more creative ways to deliver boring stock news:

Wallstrip’s also known for their (webbie nominated) HAHA video, a stock-ticker-sing-along which they posted in December 2007:

It is so hilarious and entertaining but undoubtedly geared towards their target audience.
So whether or not you are into Play:Digital via ChannelFlip:

Or want to learn Yoga with Veronica Belmont:

New Media is definitely providing more content that interest people.

“Do blogs recognize or follow any sort of ethical standard?” You can’t be more wrong. Credibility is the ultimate currency online.

For example, Unit Structures talked about “Twitter, Imagined Identity and Flux”. In that post he wrote this:

Constant Flux: The previous three elements - message centricity, imagined identity, and close community - interact to create a constant state of flux in Twitter. This is Twitter's killer feature. For those who use Twitter in a close network, you constantly renegotiate your friends' "profiles" throughout the day. As your concept of a "profile" is your friend's last few posts, each new post is new information. This is why you keep checking Twitter throughout the day - people you care about are updating, communicating, and sharing.

In a slightly lesser degree, blogs and other New Media’s killer feature is that you do renegotiate your blog readers, your community’s attention all the time. As @digitalfilipino aptly put it her tweet that I quoted, credibility is the very foundation of blogs and for me, by extension just about every facet of New Media.

This is the ultimate ethical standard check. Bullshit your readers and they’ll know about it. Why? Because the majority of your readership is your peer and they will discern, pick apart what you say. They will judge you by comments, hits and link love, which in the real world translates to credibility. This conversation translates to the only currency worth trading (other than advertising revenue) online: credibility.

On the other hand, Old Media is characterized as a one way medium. Newspaper columnists write, television anchors deliver the news, radio, musicians, actors, novelists they present their work from them to us. There is rarely any interaction between content provider and content consumer. No way for you or me to comment dynamically, to interact with the personality behind the work, to call on them, when we think they are wrong or to praise them for when they are right. People “trust” the content provider, i.e., newspapers, television, radio etc., that they did their homework. In many ways, readers “trust” that the content providers of old media to be telling the truth. The content consumer is never encouraged to interact in any sort of conversation with the content provider. This is the true value of New Media: the ability to interact with your community.

There are lots of ways wherein Old Media can exist with New Media. For example, @leolaporte who has the world’s most listened to podcast, This Week in Tech also has a radio program. He uploads his TechGuy radio show as a podcast for time-shifted listeners. That’s also the upside of New Media: viewers are allowed to read, view, or listen to your content at their own pace, in their own time. If they listen to it while commuting to work via their iPod, hey, that’s great. Isn’t it?

@JimAyson wrote on his blog, “The Ayson Chronicles,” about Die Print, Die! The Death of the Printed Newspaper and other tales of horror:

The printed newspaper died for me three years ago, replaced by Google News and its brother, Google Reader . A newspaper for me is best read off the screen, fresh, fast, and digital. Bit by electronic bit, I stopped reading the print versions of the Manila Bulletin, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the Philippine Star.

Maybe I had tired of the stereotypes fostered by the local broadsheets - the screaming columnists at the Inquirer Op-Ed pages, thetepid press release journalism of the Bulletin, or the retarded writing style of the celebrity lifestyle columnists of the Philippine Star, who couldn’t write to save their pampered behinds.

Or perhaps I had grown tired of the stacks of newspapers that had accumulated in the garage. I own no birds, so I had no need to line a birdcage.

I too share this belief. And I also use my Google Reader in the same way he does (see previous post on “The Awesomeness of the Reader”). I’m done with archaic distribution of newspapers (and of local media in general as well) and the stereotypes they parade because more often than not they dull the mind, more than stimulate it.

(updated) And oh, this just came in via Silicon Alley Insider (which really confirms my practice and that of others like me re newspapers): Breaking News! Young People Don't Like Newspapers, News to be Free in Future!

Is blogging merely text? Does it have an element of video? Is it a social network? Blogging, for example is many things to many people, just like twitter is, just like flickr is, just like video blogging is. It is many things to many people and as diverse as the ways people use the technology. Call it being zen, or abstract but that's the way it goes. At the end of the day, Old Media must realize that New Media, can not be boxed into simple connotations. From the mundane, to the serious to the technical--- blogging covers a wide range of fields of endevor. To characterize blogging and New Media in general as a form for simply amatures who wrecklessly broadcast their feed is foolish. To characterize it as without ethical boundaries is likewise ludricrous because, on the Internet, credibility is currency and that is zeigeist.