Blogging News Stories
as They Happen
Blogging news stories as they unfold is one of the
most
exciting and controversial applications of
technology
that bloggers have discovered. One thing that
makes the
blogosphere so active is the fact that it is
possible to
update a blog instantaneously, so the news on
blogs
tends to be more current than the news in the paper,
or
on television. Unlike news delivered by these
other
media, news that appears on blogs does not have
to
travel through a series of editors and
administrators
before it reaches the public eye. This has
some
advantages, and some distinct
disadvantages.
One of the most notable cases of news
hitting a blog
before appearing in other media took place
in July 2005
when terrorism struck London. As passengers
were
evacuated from a subway car near an explosion,
one
man took several photographs of the scene with
his
cellular phone, and within an hour these images
were
posted online. First-person accounts of the
catastrophe
began appearing on blogs soon after these
photos
appeared, and people all over the world learned
about
the events in London by reading the words and
seeing
the photos posted by bloggers.
The fact that
these stories and images were being spread
directly by
individuals operating without the added
filter of a
reporter helped to make the crisis feel very
immediate to
people across the globe. When it comes to
blogging, news
often appears in a very personal context.
This has the
potential to be the beginning of an exciting
new era of
reporting, one that takes "New Journalism"
to it's logical
next step by putting the power to shape
how the news is
written and read directly into the hands
of the public.
Many bloggers and cultural commentators who
are
champions of the weblog movement feel that
this
growing trend of individuals who getting their
news
from blogs is a good thing, because it makes the flow
of
information more democratic. By decentralizing
the
control of news, blogs allow more voices to enter
the
field of debate about important current
events.
However, many people are adamantly opposed to
the
use of blogs as news outlets, and there are plenty
of
good arguments on this side of the debate.
Unlike
newspapers or television stations, few blogs have
fact-
checkers, and there is little attention paid to
journalistic
accountability on many blogs. This can lead to
the rapid
spread of misinformation, and more than one
falsehood
has taken the blogosphere by storm. The
questions
about whether blogging news as it happens is
ethical or
not are very complicated, but no matter where
you stand
on the topic of current events blogs you are
almost sure
to agree that this movement has the potential
to
revolutionize how modern people get their news.
|
