journalism

Why I Don’t Miss Being a Reporter

According to a new CNW study, 52% of bloggers now see themselves as journalists, compared with 33% in 2008.

You can count me among the 52% because in many respects I don’t see much of a difference between what I do now when writing blog posts, and what I did when I was a newspaper technology reporter with the Globe & Mail, National Post and Bloomberg News.

These days, I write stories that interest me and get to talk with all kinds of cool people. For example, I wanted to do a blog post on Prezi.com, the new presentation tool being used by a growing number of people at conferences these days. So, I sent an e-mail the CEO, and within a couple of days, I had done an interview and published a blog post.

The ability to “report” is one of the reasons why I don’t miss newspaper journalism. In many respects, I can eat my cake and have it too. With blogging as a user-friendly and popular writing vehicle, I still get to write and report about what I want, and have a modest audience.

This is a contrast to 2000 when I left journalism to co-found Blanketware, a natural language search start-up. It was really before blogging became popular so I missed writing and reporting. In many respects, it meant I had one foot in the start-up world and another still in journalism. For an entrepreneur, this is not a good place to be.

Today, I see myself as an active and engaged member of Canada’s high-tech journalism landscape. It’s not something that makes me any money directly but it’s definitely something I enjoy.


Wise Words from Clay Shirky

If you’re at all interested in the future of newspapers and journalism, check out this GRIT TV interview with Clay Shirky. There is lots of good material here, including Shirky’s contention that we shouldn’t be focused on savings newspapers but, instead, we need to ask whether we can save journalism.


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