A semi-heated discussion with an editor one time came with the phrase about news being “wasted in a blog”.

That phrase is quite offensive for bloggers like myself. Though I am a journalist, I think there is a place where bloggers and news folk can live in peace and harmony. Saying something was wasted on a blog doesn’t go toward that purpose.

How people get their news now-a-days is varied. In the news profession, those who don’t become flexible will not have a chance to stay in the news profession, so why all this hostility?

I think that its the fear of the blogger getting where the reporters use to be, that fundamental kernel of news gathering, what draws in readers and such. Bloggers, because they don’t have the confines of daily deadlines and editors and way too much protocol can spend a morning working on a post. It may only be a couple of words but those 600 words are, in most cases, more effective than the 20 inches a newspaper can promise and delivers.

More people are also turning to blogs, even if they belong to the media organization, for an insight that can’t be read or seen through the traditional media. They want and yearn and CRAVE for people who know what they are talking about bloggers, true bloggers, provide that. They are, have become, and will continue to be the reporters on record.  Mainstream media have stepped away from that, bloggers have picked it up.

I understand that there are those folk, my colleagues in reporting, who are upset and don’t understand blogs, bloggers, and blogging. They lash out and say things that don’t make sense like “wasted on a blog”.  Though that is disrespectful to me, I’ve built a bridge and gotten over it.  Because I know, I have learned so much in my years a blogger and have developed more skills in the medium than I have in a long while. I think both blogging and reporting compliment each other perfectly and separating them both is ridiculous and ignorant, frankly.

But then again, they’ll probably be asking me for a job in a few years so…things being “wasted on a blog” is a bad way to start a job interview. Just saying.