Bloggers Should Be Considered Citizen Journalism

In the debate between bloggers and journalists, there have been many people who advocate for the term “citizen journalists” to be used when referring to bloggers. In a sense, that sounds reasonable since bloggers now hold a solid influence over the attention that certain events or issues gets. In his article, Deckers argues that bloggers are very similar to traditional journalists and therefore, should have the same rights and protection. There should be, however, a distinction between bloggers and journalists. Although both bloggers and journalists should be enjoy the rights described in the Reporter Shield Laws, journalists and bloggers have different expectations from readers and write for different reasons. While I agree that it is unfair for bloggers to not be protected by the Reader Shield …show more content…
Even though bloggers should be protected under the Reporter Shield Laws, they cannot all be considered journalists. Primarily, journalists are held at higher expectations and undergo more training than the average blogger. Even though there are journalists who became bloggers, not all bloggers are in the same situation. Journalists work for media outlets and as such, their work is held at a higher level of expectation than a blogger, who can write about anything as long as he or she has somewhere to post it on. Additionally, bloggers are able to choose what to write about depending on their area of interest and although journalists can also specify what subject they want to specialize in, they do not always have a choice when it comes to covering a certain topic. Bloggers, therefore, are sometimes biased in their work, a characteristic that is frowned upon in journalism, as journalism is mainly about being objective. As a result of these differences, bloggers should not be considered as