What?

It was one of those Wednesday evenings. Gloomy monsoon season sky, and nothing interesting was showing on Discovery Channel. Uneventful, unlikely to get eventful. So I made myself a cup of tea - a routine to make what I call “fooling time” a bit more meaningful.

Few minutes later, with the cup of tea sitting on my table and in front of my computer, I rolled up my sleeves, and login into Nuffnang Innit.

As expected, none of those rated top 10 posts of the day were remotely worth browsing through. No one was chatting at the chat box too, where I usually pick up internet-fights on purpose, just to kill time.

I was about to move on to another fooling-time-site, when Superwilson’s latest update bumped one of those top 10 posts of the day off the chart. Titled “The Difference Between Journalists And Bloggers“, it lured me into clicking on the link effortlessly.

I wasn’t expecting a bombshell anyway, so the article didn’t let me down at all. In fact, the article itself supported some of my assumptions.

Blogs will never replace mainstream medias, because of one main reason: blogs don’t get edited.

Many - usually big fans of free speech - will say unedited contents are not really a bad thing. I think they’re not a really good thing either. Web log publishing, or blogging, are usually done by a single person. The articles you read (like the one you’re reading now) are often raw input from a singular, opinionated source. They don’t have to go through the editing process like journalists from news agencies, so they think less about the consequences, and more about getting the message across the globe.

Before a story in any of the National Geography magazines got published, everything must be validated by the editor. The sources, the interviewees, and the facts, will be cross checked and referenced. If one of those things went wrong after the story got published, like maybe the interviewees themselves are fakes, National Geography might get into serious trouble, especially when the story affects a certain party’s image.

Bloggers don’t really have these problems because of the anonymity provided by internet made it easier for them. Malicious contents or not, all they need to do is click on the “publish now” button, and whoever has a computer with internet browser installed plus an internet service will get to read it.

Even if the blogger doesn’t maximize the benefit of anonymity (like me), there are very few, or almost no reasons to actually do some actual researches, like interviewing the subjects of discussion. Going through the proper journalism way, the time and resources an average blogger will spend, will not justify the return, which is nothing other than bragging rights.

You don’t need to get the language right either, because no one will/can stop you from publishing your essay about your lunch with at least half the length of it written in profanities. Still, reading a two thousand words strong post about how Malaysia is doing currently, it will be hard to take you very seriously when you use words like “motherfuckers” and haven’t talked to any of those you used that word on in real life.

But don’t worry, some social political bloggers might find it entertaining anyway, and the unique visitors statistic of your blog might be abnormally high for some time.

What I’m trying to say is, as entertaining as blogs can be, they will never replace mainstream medias, like the press, simply because they don’t have the resources for original contents like expose of a smuggling network.

But you can make it big if you do the journalist way - get the sources, facts, and tones/languages right, and maybe, just maybe, more people will start to take you more serious and read whatever you’re writing (without you begging them to), making you an expert plus a top blogger in the process.

Top bloggers in respective industries take blogging very seriously. They’re well respected because they are the expert of the field, they have the credibility and they know what they’re talking about. They are essentially journalists, but referred as bloggers anyway because of the medium they’re working on.

In case you’re wondering, no, I don’t take blogging very seriously. Which is why I have done zero research or interview for this post. Here I presented my singular opinionated view on what I think about blogs, buying it or not, it’s entirely up to you.

Have fun blogging.