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Jun

14

Training & the threats against bloggers


Interesting article about training for bloggers from…Society of Professional Journalists with commentary by Clint Brewer, current president of the national SPJ and Robert Cox, the champion of Media Bloggers Association:

Non-journalists entering the world of blogs, online feedback forums, online videos and news Web sites provide information that newspapers and other media can’t or don’t. But many are now turning to professional journalists for help with dilemmas they’re facing: When is something libelous? What’s the difference between opinion and news? And how do you find public documents?

About a dozen would-be reporters navigated the basics of journalism at a recent training offered by the Society of Professional Journalists in Chicago. The group plans similar seminars this month in Greensboro, N.C., and Los Angeles.

Just a way to make a buck?

Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., which supports working journalists, praised the effort to offer training to so-called citizen journalists.

“I think that what we’re moving toward is some king of positioning between amateur and professional,” Clark said.

Amateurs have long contributed to professional news reports, including the film of John F. Kennedy’s assassination and photos from the Virginia Tech massacre last year, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004, Clark said.

Now, many distribute their content on their own, and some have gotten into trouble, said Clint Brewer, the national president of SPJ.

So what’s the point?

Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, said more than 100 judgments valued at $17 million have been handed down against bloggers over the last three years – about 60 percent for defamation, 25 percent for copyright infringement and 10 percent involving privacy.

“It’s the tip of the iceberg,” Cox said. “Bloggers are being asked to write checks. The threats against bloggers are very real. The costs are very real.”

But what I really want to know more about is this project:

Geoff Dougherty, editor of the Web site ChiTownDailyNews.org and a presenter at the SPJ program, is trying to prevent that by offering his reporters online training.

With a $340,000 Knight News Challenge, he’s creating a team of 77 to report on the smallest of meetings in every city neighborhood – gatherings that mainstream news organizations don’t cover.

“I see us in five years as the go-to source for Chicago news,” said Dougherty. “It’s a big goal.”

Wendy – have we heard anything yet?

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:29 pm June 14th, 2008 in Blogroll, Media, Tech, Writing 

Comments

2 Responses to “Training & the threats against bloggers”

  1. 1 Dee Mullen on June 15th, 2008 12:32 pm

    Wow… I’m going to be doing a series of blogs on various car tips and car related info this summer for the dealership I work at. Not to mention all of the personal blogging I do… It never really occurred to me that I could possibly get in legal trouble for stating my opinions and ideas online. I guess it is just a matter of what you post and how you make it appear to others.

    This article definitely opened my eyes to being more careful on the content I post and how I make it seem to others.

  2. 2 Wendy Hoke on June 16th, 2008 8:22 am

    Nothing yet…

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