Are Bloggers Members of the Press?

Posted on January 9, 2008 in Editorials

At the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show, controversy was raised when “blogger” credentials were introduced, meaning bloggers received the “blogger” badges instead of receiving “press” badges as they had in previous years.

Bloggers and officially-designated members of the press were segregated into separate lounges, and many bloggers were displeased by the differences between the two rooms.

The press lounge was supplied with an espresso machine and freshly-baked cookies, and was conveniently located by the South Hall entrance. Bloggers had to walk to the far end of the South Convention floor to get to their smaller, amenity-lacking lounge.

Any events designated as “press only” were off-limit to anyone with blogger credentials.

Strangely, some organizations received varying credentials for their representatives. Some Gizmodo employees were inexplicably given press badges while their co-workers received blogger badges.

“Instead of all of us being united under the umbrella of ‘press,’” wrote Gizmodo contributing editor Adam Frucci, “some of us were arbitrarily deemed ‘bloggers’ and others ‘press.’ I’m press, but [senior associate editor Jason] Chen is a blogger.”

The differentiation between bloggers and press at CES 2008 raises a larger question: should bloggers be considered members of the press?

Traditional members of the press, from newspapers, magazines, and television news crews, have been trained as journalists and work under editors and with the pressures of deadlines. There is a standard for quality in those fields.

In general, bloggers don’t have the same training, and don’t have an editor to read their work and make necessary changes. They post their raw thoughts, straight from their heads to the web.

Moreover, anyone can have a blog. It only takes a few minutes to set up a free blog on services such as WordPress.com or Blogger.

So why should Joe Schmoe, who created a blog to post pictures of his truck, suddenly be eligible for the same credentials as a trained, paid journalist at a major event such as CES?

He shouldn’t.

But what about the serious bloggers? The ones who approach blogging with a journalistic point-of-view, intending to provide legitimate content and coverage?

That type of blogger should be considered a member of the press. They do exactly what journalists do: they gather and disseminate information about current events, trends, issues and people. They just don’t get paid. Not usually, anyway.

So why draw a line? While there are many bloggers who shouldn’t be considered members of the press, there are just as many who should. Even without formal training, or editors to guide them, those bloggers work just as hard on their posts as newspaper writers do on their stories and columns.

A blogger who researches, reports, writes, and edits is a journalist by definition, and it doesn’t take a paycheck from a publication for that to be the case.

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