The Doc Searls Weblog : Thursday, April 15, 2004

Jeff and Doc are talking about getting blogger more time to report. In other words, the professionalization of blogging. It’s starting to happen and I’m happy to say that we are Weblogs, Inc. are trying to make this a reality.

As Docs and Jeff both point out in order for this to be sustainable there needs to be MONEY

Here’s the kicker. I have assignments I’m following right now. That I’m paid to follow. They’re not for my blog, which pays me nothing. That means I’m busy and won’t be reporting much on this story in the blog. I’ll only be following it, and pointing to what others say. If every other blogger is just like me, and we’re all one big op-ed page for the newspapers, we achieve a necessary but insufficient condition for definition as journalists of a professional grade. We remain amateurs. I believe that’s a good thing, even a necessary thing. But it’s also a different thing than what you get from professionals.