Fergus Cassidy

Old school

THE small school hall could have done with a new coat of paint and stronger light bulbs. As daylight departed, it took the glare from the photographs of Padraig Pearse and the Pope along with it.

Outside, moths swarmed around the entrance light, while underneath a small group of journalists had their own flame to worry about.

Hanging around for first count election results was boring but the calmness was preferable to the storm.

When the results came, there was a stampede to find any telephone within a five mile radius. The single phone in the school hall had been 'allocated' to RTE and other journalists were given hot air.

The bigger the news organisation the bigger the clout was the lesson learned that day. I'd forgotten all about it until the latest round of shadow boxing between journalism and blogging.

Bloggers (online writers) are ruffling some feathers in the media pecking order and be under no doubt that one exists. The role of blogging is being put under the spotlight for all sorts of reasons.

The one I find most interesting - and annoying at the same time - is the black-and-white analysis of the relationship between journalism and blogging. An illusionary chasm between print and pixel.

For me the most important aspect to what bloggers do is what's known in journalism as freelance. Some of them do it to make a crust, others out of choice. Many have qualifications, many do not. The key thing is freelancers provide a healthy diversity in the type and quality of stories people read.

In the print world, a freelance writer's place in the pecking order was a challenge to be overcome. When big media opens its tent, freelancers generally have to blag or beg their way in.

All writers - whatever they call themselves - have traditionally been absolutely dependent on others to get their stories published. With the internet things began to change and self-publishing became a reality. As the new kid on the media block, the internet is facing scrutiny and some resistance. But we've been down this road before.

When television arrived, it was a luxury and in any case didn't papers contain all the news that's fit to print? Print was grand. Read on the bus, in the toilet, in bed. No need for television. When the papers started publishing programme guides, it was obvious television had made it. And fair play to it.

The situation with blogging at the moment is really a backdrop to the much bigger picture of whether the internet is part of the media landscape. Any resistance to that lies mostly with the net's nature.

Unlike all other media, the nuts and bolts of the internet - the protocols - are owned by nobody and everybody. There are almost no points of control in comparison to traditional media. Most of the caution and/or negativity stems from this lack of control.

This is old school stuff. If writers are attached to a traditional media company or organisation, they are deemed 'professionals'. They have to operate amidst the checks and balances of editors, sub-editors, lawyers and accountants.

The 'are bloggers journalists?' debate is going nowhere. Many writers (including bloggers) are clearly not journalists and no matter how hard we try, the reverse can be applicable.

Journalism is not a commodity or a skill that can be fully attained through a course. A press card is just a piece of laminated plastic.

What makes journalism journalism is another story, but it certainly has nothing at all to do with how it's published. For journalism, content is king, not format.

The internet has created a new media, one that will take some time to adjust to. It won't supplant or damage existing media. If anything it will benefit other media by facilitating research and interactivity.

With ownership of traditional media in fewer and larger hands, the internet can provide an increasingly vital outlet for independent news and views. If it's allowed to.

Far more pressing than the 'are bloggers journalists?' kerfuffle is whether online writers - no matter what they're called - have the same legal protections and rights as existing media.

The current ability to silence online expression with such ease and secretiveness is much more of a threat to journalism than blogging ever could be.