4.3.02

 
the silent object?
Jill writes about her being criticised for criticising journalists.

I think perhaps her friend's reaction documented in the post from march 1st 2002 and the discomfort to blogs of Annalee Newitz is the same thing: the journalist's fear of exactly that: becoming objects.

To a journalist, we are all objects: all potential stories. It has to be this way, they have to try to be "objective", to write both sides of a story, to see the facts and not be influenced by special interests and so on and so on. In their world, the only subjects are themselves and their immediate friends - that is, friends who are close enough that if they write about them, they might not be "objective".

As Annalee Newitz points out, bloggers do what the journalists can do, but without the restrictions of journalism. That turns them into subjects: active and out of control, chaos which not only can be observed, but also observes their observers. This is an attack at a group which is not quite a profession. Journalims is trying to become a profession, and colleges like ours are part of that process - I am part of that process - but it's still a job where you don't need any qualifications but the ability to write and to find something to write about which others want to read. The rest is legalities and ethics.

There are no blogger ethics. There is common courtesy, and for people like Jill and me, there's the fact that we have a professional image we do not wish to damage, but there are no standard rules of conduct which will be used to close down an unethical blog. There are no blogger laws. While blogging isn't outside of the law, a blogger isn't protected by the practices protecting journalists and editors, but at the same time don't speak for anybody other than him or her self, as such coming under the rules of free speach. A blogger can be as imprecise and subjective as any private citizen - and is equally vulnerable. There's no blogger school. While there are attempts at creating a blogg aesthetics, you don't need to pass any exams before you create a blog. Feel free to join right in.

From the point of view of journalists, this is chaos, anarchy, a freedom which won't lead to democracy but to mob rule. A craft justifying its existence and its own relative freedom from the law and common courtesy through the claim of the necessity for free flow of information in order to uphold the democracy, will of course have problems with a group of people not justifying their writing with anything but pleasure. There's also the fear for their jobs. What if people decide that they don't need journalists?

All of this before we talk about power and control again. But power and control is very much part of it. The writer, the reader and the object. In that particular order.