On Bloggers and Anonymity

A few years ago in the UK, Zoe Margolis was outed by the Sunday Times as 'Abby' Lee', author of the blog 'Girl With a One Track Mind'. According to her blog, what happened was that a journalist came to her house and asked her to sign for a bunch of flowers, supposedly from her publishers, while hidden photographers look a picture of her at the door. Since then, the journalist's apparently tried to defend herself by describing Zoe Margolis's use of a pseudonym as a 'marketing gimmick'.

Yeah, totally. It's not because it was a controversial topic that would be completely humiliating if people she knew read it. It's not because she didn't want all the guys she wrote about realising who they were or anything. I am actually a huge fan of her blog, I thought what she wrote about was so true and it was totally different to the image of women that's presented in the media. I really related to it and thought the advice she gave was brilliant, but now that she has to censor herself, while the blog's still good, it's just not the same.
I don't think the journalist who did the outing really stopped to think about the impact she'd be having on people's lives. In her blog, Margolis expresses her dismay at the complete lack of integrity shown by the paper that outed her. It wasn't just the blogger who was affected, her family, friends and the guys she wrote about were affected too. The blog wouldn't have been as good if she'd written it under her real name, because she wouldn't have felt comfortable being so honest.

Apparently something similar happened with the blog 'Night Jack', which was written by a policeman, and the justification used was that he was in a position of responsibility so it was 'in the public interest' or something like that.I haven't actually read his blog, but it sounds like it would've been really interesting. This guy actually tried to get an injunction to stop a journalist revealing his identity, but the judge refused to grant it, ruling that 'blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity.'
I don't think the judge took into account the fact that some of the most amazing blogs are written anonymously, and part of the reason they're so amazing is that under a cloak of anonymity, these people feel comfortable revealing things that they wouldn't even tell their best friends. Which can make for pretty powerful writing.

I honestly don't get why journalists feel the need to hunt down bloggers and out them. Perhaps it's a 'new vs old media' thing? Maybe they feel threatened by this new type of writer. Maybe they think if the whole blogging thing really takes off, they'll be out of a job.
But honestly, I don't think that's going to be a huge issue. Blogging has its advantages, but like I said in my last post, I think there's a place for both types of media.

Citizen Journalism

So citizen journalism is basically the whole idea of people starting blogs, uploading videos onto sites like YouTube, getting their opinions and stories out there without having to worry about deadlines or censorship from editors like professional journalists would.
One definite advantage to citizen journalism is the fact that these days, you get one company owning several different newspapers and magazines, e.g. Rupert Murdoch. He owns,like 70% of the media or something like that? The Telegraph, New Idea, etc.
I, personally, think it's a little bit pointless having all these different newspapers if they're all owned by the same person. You might as well just have the one paper and be done with it. Doesn't it kind of miss the whole point of media diversity? If newspapers were all separate, then we'd get lots of different points of view. I mean, sure there are different people writing for each paper , but ultimately, if they write something Murdoch doesn't agree with, he can refuse to print it.

So I guess the whole idea of citizen journalism is kind of cool in that sense. It takes the power away from these mega-corporations that, to an extent, control what we think, and it allows real people to put their points of view out there and connect with others that share the same point of view.

On the other hand, speaking as a Communications student who actually wants to get into journalism, is it possible that by the time I finish uni,my degree will be completely obsolete? Are bloggers going to replace journalists?
Surely there's a reason we spend three years in this degree learning how to write articles. Is the quality of a blog really going to be equal to that of something written by a journalist? This blog on The Age site called Citizen sums it up pretty well. Journalism does seem to be a profession where you work hard and get very little respect. Apparently journalism is one of the most hated professions, even more hated than lawyers. But I agree with what this blog says:

'...when was the last time you encountered a "citizen doctor", valued a report by a "citizen researcher", took off in a plane flown by a "citizen pilot" or saw justice meted out by "citizen policeman"?'

I don't think citizen/online journalism will replace newspapers and magazines, but that's not do say it's pointless or doesn't have a purpose. Even if it's not exactly journalism, it still gets people thinking about different points of view that don't always get represented in the media, and in a world where one billionaire owns about twenty different newspapers, it's probably the closest thing we've got to media diversity.