Technobiography

Blogging and press freedom

I previously mentioned about being interviewed by Max Limpag of Sun.Star Cebu. I was interviewed alongside blogging biggies like MLQ, Sassy and Abe (obvious ba, I’m still delighted until now).

When I received his questions via e-mail, I browsed through them first and concluded: “this is something that needs time for thought.”

It was a well researched set of questions. And I wanted to put in some extra effort in answering the questions. Here are some excerpts from my replies to Max’s interview.

Do you see yourself as journalists in the mold of reporters producing original news content or more of opinion writers who comment on news items?

I see myself more in the realm of opinion writers who comment on news items.

News is fine as blog content. It sends the message across many times over, more quickly. Of course blog news can be simple replication, linking or even gossip. Bloggers are quicker than the more formal media channels like newspapers, radio or TV because these formal media channels need to go through an editorial process.

But I think the art in blogging emanates from critical opinion and not speed of news transmission. I would rather be an opinion writer than one who just simply spreads the news.

Clay Shirky, a professor at New York University, sees the difference between traditional media and Weblog communities this way: “The order of things in broadcast is ‘filter, then publish.’ The order in
communities is ‘publish, then filter.’ The filtering is done through a Darwinian system of good blogs flourishing because readers keep returning to it. Do you agree with this statement?

Yes. And rightly so. Who’s the best judge of what is relevant to people than people themselves? The world of media is changing and we need to help people to adjust to it. We call this information literacy. In the past, media chose for people what people read. Now its people themselves who have to learn to choose, to discern, to discriminate. This is something that needs to be taught and learned. Otherwise, people will drown in a deluge of information useless to them.

…. more tomorrow …