maramine blog

Every writer who covers tech gets accused of bias. These accusations most often come from young, passionate readers with strong biases. Oh the irony. I get comments and emails accusing me of being biased several times each week. Typically, I ignore them. Sometimes, I reply.

When I do reply, I try to be frank and also to use little-boy words under the assumption that most of the people who send these emails are young teenagers who read headlines and then draw conclusions. If my responses are too wordy, these kids will likely lose interest after a few sentences.

Below is an example of one such exchange. I publish this for young writers who will inevitably be accused of being biased. Repeatedly, in all likelihood. If this is your chosen line of work, you will often be inclined to defend your writing, but consider your approach. When I see bloggers publicly respond in the comments section below a post with aggression and insults, I shudder. It’s easy to be defensive but it is infinitely more productive—and less embarrassing—to explain to your accusers why they might be wrong.

If you must reply, keep it simple and honest. You will be surprised how often such responses will either silence your accusers, or even help them to understand why their feelings may be misguided. On numerous occasions, my responses have led to great exchanges and readers who become more loyal than ever.

From: [redacted]
Reply-To: [redacted]
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 04:49:22 -0400
To: Team <team@bgr.com>
Subject: CONTACT Bye Bye

Name: Chris [redacted]
Email: [redacted]

So,

I’ve been subscribed to your feed for ages. This morning I removed your feed and I felt I needed to tell you why.

You have some good content, but it’s eclipsed by your apple evangelism; which is totally biased and not professional. Please say you’re making money out of it, because it’s sad otherwise.

regards

Chris

—

[Response]

It’s easy for people unfamiliar with the way this business works to toss out the oft-misused “bias” accusation, but I assure you that if the bulk of our coverage focused on a company or companies that you favor, you would not believe us to be “biased.”

As it stands, BGR is a business and we have to write about what people want to read about. We cover numerous companies extensively, of course, but Apple is currently the most popular tech company in the world. As such, we cover them more than other companies for obvious reasons: this is what our readers want to read. Apple stories are almost always our most trafficked.

We’ll continue doing what we do, and we’re sorry to see you go. Thanks for being a BGR reader as long as you were, though, and hopefully when the tide turns and the bulk of our coverage focuses on the next big tech company, you’ll come back around to check out the site again.

All the best,

-Zach

When asked my opinion on the difference between a journalist and a blogger, my half-joking response never changes:

A blogger tells you what happened and what he thinks about what happened. A journalist tells you what happened and then uses other people’s words to tell you what he thinks about what happened.

In other words, bloggers are forthcoming with their opinions. Journalists feed loaded questions to analysts and experts until they get the quotes they need to share their opinions.

This is true. But I say it jokingly because it is one item in a laundry list of differences between journalists and bloggers.

For a more complete assessment, see How to Tell a Journalist from a Blogger, by Jolie O’Dell.

This is a post that every blogger should read.

Calling yourself a journalist simply because you write about politics or technology or anything else on the Internet is, simply put, ridiculous. It is akin to calling yourself an Interior Designer because you selected your own shower curtain, or a “Social Media Guru” because you have a Twitter account.

It’s stupid.

Journalists, as O’Dell points out in great detail, belong to a specific subset of professional writers. Bloggers, or at least those who blog professionally, belong to a very different subset.

In speaking with a journo friend of mine about O’Dell’s piece, we both agreed with her on almost every count. There was one area, however, where our mutual opinion strayed greatly from hers. The idea that journalists are inherently better than bloggers.

My friend and I both laughed at this notion.

This blanket concept shines throughout O’Dell’s piece, and it clearly comes from someone who has been called a blogger one too many times, and who has taken great offense to this repeated error. It’s an honest mistake, though, considering she writes professionally for a blog.

Like any other line of work, there are good journalists and very, very bad ones. There are also good bloggers and very, very bad ones. To suggest that one profession should universally command more respect than the other is patently ridiculous.

And directly comparing these two professions might be considered ridiculous as well - like comparing a novelist to a copywriter. Are they similar? Yes, both jobs involve writing.

There was a time when journalism was sensationalized. Journalists were enviable studs who raced against deadlines, had sex with secretaries and received barking commands from cigar-chomping Editors. They worked for respected newspapers that the country relied on to learn about the latest evil Communist plot.

Times, however, have changed.

Journalists now work for struggling media giants that regret having invested more in M&A and real estate than their own futures. Journalists themselves are no longer enviable studs, but are instead aging curmudgeons who spend more time dancing around the obvious than reporting the facts.

(Stop crying - these are all intentional sarcastic generalizations)

Each of O’Dell’s points still holds true, for the most part, but the devil is in the details:

Journalists are professionals. Bloggers are hacks.

Had bloggers existed in the 1950s, this would have probably been true. But it’s 2010 and I know many bloggers with far more skill, professionalism and integrity than most journalists. I also know many bloggers who can write circles around most journalists.

Perhaps these are a couple of the reasons so many old media companies now employ bloggers.

Journalism and blogging each have a very important place in the business of disseminating information. One, however, is not invariably better or more worthy of respect than the other.

Compare individuals, not generalizations or prejudices.

—

Postscript:

Am I a journalist? No.

I didn’t go to school for journalism. I studied business (and later, music).

I tell it like I see it. I write what I want.

I make my opinions clear. I make my biases known.

I make generalizations. I care more about being engaging than being careful.

Oh, and I tell readers where I got my story, not just where stats and quotes came from.