In 2010, a survey conducted by PRWeek and PRNewswire found that over half of all bloggers consider themselves to be journalists. This was up from just a third of all bloggers two years before.
The question of whether or not bloggers are journalists is an old one and it can be an important one legally. As the EFF puts it, journalists can often times keep confidential sources private, gain extra protection in libel cases in the form of retraction statutes and receive fee waivers when Freedom of Information Act requests.
But while all of this is true, The Atlantic, in 2011, argued that we shouldn’t care whether or not bloggers are journalists, that the issue isn’t very important and that reporters at large publications and organization have much stronger protections than the title “journalist”.
Still, the subject is a sensitive one for bloggers, who are often eager for the weight and credibility that comes with being a journalist. When blogger Crystal Cox was ruled to not be a journalist in 2011 and ordered to pay millions in a defamation lawsuit filed by the founder of an investment group, after denying her protection under the state’s shield law that protects journalist sources, many bloggers took up arms. However, once the details of the case came to light and it was clear just how wrong much of Cox’s information was, attitudes slowly changed.
But it leaves the bigger question unresolved: Are bloggers journalists? To get the answer, we have to first look at what the question is really asking and try to drill down to the important answers. [Read more…] about Are Bloggers Journalists? Are Journalists Bloggers?