[Macro error: Can't call "homePageLink" because there aren't enough parameters.]
Jane Perrone
Jane Perrone is deputy news editor - news and politics at Guardian Unlimited in London, where she has worked for the past four years.
Jane writes for two of the site's weblogs, (guardian.co.uk/weblog and guardian.co.uk/weblog/usa).
She has a master of mass communication degree from Louisiana State University in the US, and she spent a year as research assistant on the Politics and the Internet Project at the Open University.
She has her own personal blog: perrone.blogs.com/horticultural.
This paper considers the sometimes troubled but frequently rewarding relationship between blogging and journalism, through the lens of my experiences writing weblogs for Guardian Unlimited.
It will contain the following:
1. A description of the history of Guardian Unlimited�s involvement in weblogs and its role as one of the first newspapers to set up a blog, considering how its creation and development interacts with the rest of the website�s journalistic products and practices.
2. An investigation of the extent to which weblogs have permeated the UK journalistic agenda, both in terms of frequency of stories and the number of media organisations that now boast their own weblogs.
3. A consideration of the vexed question of whether blogging is a form of journalism, and an assessment of the practical, ethical and technical issues facing the blogging journalist, including:
How do weblog posts fit in with the traditional journalistic procedures of subbing and editing?
Can newspaper weblogs ever really be part of the blogging community?
Should journalists be allowed to maintain personal weblogs?
4. Predictions as to how British news organisations - specifically Guardian Unlimited - will report about and use weblogs in the future, including:
Weblogs as a way of sourcing breaking and off-diary news
The weblog phenomenon as the story itself
Weblogs as an extension of the columnist�s persona
One-off, time-bounded weblogs as a way of covering major breaking news events
Webloggers as celebrities
Weblogs as a new form of journalism for specialist reporters
5. The paper will conclude by proposing the creation of a journalists� weblog manifesto, in the spirit of Robert Scoble�s corporate weblog manifesto, laying out some of the key considerations for journalists writing weblogs, be they personal or professional.
last update: Friday, July 23, 2004 at 10:32:31 AM-----------------------
Copyright 2004