Journalists Shun Blogging 'to Avoid Highlighting' Their Shortcomings

Journalism.co.uk has an article about how blogs will force journalism to be more professional. Mediocre journalists who produce work inferior to that of bloggers will be cut, as there is no need to keep dross on the payroll. For years, mediocre journalists were sheltered by huge media companies and the lack of transparency.

Among older, traditional journalists there is often a palpable sense of newspaper protectionism: lightweight, predictable, and often just plain wrong assumptions about, and rejection of, the digital age, accompanied by a cosy nostalgia about the sticky, sour smell of the presses and the reassuring crumpliness of the papers they delivered as a lad.

It is an inevitable and very natural process of evolution to resist change, which is why it is refreshing to hear those digital realisations from Jon Snow: a man of, well, some experience.

"Citizen journalism won't supplant professional journalism, but it may actually professionalise it," he told the MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit. This openness and transparency may even help to inspire greater public trust in the press.

"Pyjama" bloggers.

He said it would be a good thing if half the people working in journalism had left in five years' time.

"I don't have anything against alcoholics, but when I entered journalism frankly there were plenty of people that just shouldn't have been there. Massive media organisations protect these people."

Leather-kilted web genius Ben Hammersley said the best user-generated content on the Guardian's Comment is free site is almost as good as the professional content.

"It's quite obvious if you're a professional journalist that if you're not very good, you're screwed," he said.

"At some point your editor will start saying - why are we paying you this much money when Joe Bloggs the pyjama blogger is writing comment that is better than yours?"

Journalists' shortcomings.

The reticence of some traditional journalists to engage with blogging, he said, could be to avoid highlighting their own shortcomings.

One thing that even mediocre journalists have more than bloggers is grammar training, which would qualify them for careers in technical writing in the basements of major corporations.