In the modern world in which we live, everyone can be a journalist. Blogging has allowed anybody with any kind of ideas or information (and those without) a platform from which to speak. No longer are the mainstream media the guardians of truth. Yet blogging has its flaws. Freedom of speech and freedom of information are exploitable phenomena and bloggers can stretch these liberties as far as they can go and beyond. Blogging for racial hatred... it happens. Also, whilst there is a great deal of highly respectable information available on blogs, the fact that any Joe Blogs (pardon the pun) can speak out means that there is a lot of poorly conceived and ill-thought through 'ideas'.
For all of the bad blogs, there are just as many good blogs, offering new thoughts, ideas and perspectives on issues within the news. Bloggers are often people with a genuinely interesting perspective who would not otherwise have a forum by which they could speak out for their beliefs. A common fallacy is that traditional media and citizen journalists are in competition. Citizen journalists are a media in themselves, able to add some thoughts on the issues that mainstream journalists discuss. Mainstream journalists have no stranglehold on the ‘truth’, and neither do bloggers. But together they can create something that will at least resemble the truth. The fragmentation of information that is the malaise of postmodern society means that there is no one truth, but a myriad of ideas and explanations that bloggers and journalists can combine to create. The truth...We CAN handle the truth (and help to create it).
