Net Results:Journalists can be among the most stubborn in accepting the changes that technology brings, writes Karlin Lillington.
Even though we often use new technologies before much of the general population - the nature of the job meant, early on, many publications shifted to computer-based production, and many individual writers and photographers embraced the internet, digital photography, wireless networks, social networking sites and so on - we are reluctant to accept some of the consequences.
For example, many journalists remain deeply suspicious of having an e-mail address that makes them more accessible to their readership than ever. Whatever about getting all those press releases in the inbox, a lot of us hate getting personal e-mails of a sort that once would have been addressed to the letters page.
We were well used to having a privileged soapbox where we spoke but replies were filtered in an orderly and fairly indirect way. Now and then, a reader might telephone or send a personal letter, but this was fairly rare.
An e-mail address however provides quick and direct access and lets readers add their two cents worth.
However, if you want to find what really creates turmoil, look no further than weblogs. The very concept splits writers and newspaper management both. Some journalists think a blog is an obvious extension of and a complement to their print work and enjoy the vast and varied nature of the blogosphere. Others hate it and deride it as indulgent piffle.
Managements vary from avoiding blogs entirely - sometimes banning writers from having them - to supporting official blogs written by their own journalists on the paper's website.
In short, weblogs are the technology that creates the most tension in the traditional publishing world, posing a challenge and a threat that some recognise and a few, even welcome. But most, I think it is safe to say, do not understand weblogs and their enormously democratising effect at all, and foolishly, hope or pretend they will go away.
Without doubt, the UK's Guardian newspaper is the print publication that has embraced blogs, discussion forums and other key elements of electronic interaction. It has placed its website to the forefront of the whole paper's identity, to the point where the Guardian cannot rightly even be termed "a paper" any longer - it is instead a new hybrid whose identity and function are intertwined with its online presence. "Publication" is a better term, perhaps.
In the midst of all these changes within publishing, I'd always believed journalists who cover technology or the business of technology would be those most understanding of what is happening and how groundshaking it is - how it changes our relationship with our readers and shifts around the notions of authority, power, expertise, access.
After all, we write about the industry and the people who are right on the edge of these developments. A lot of us practically live on the web. We get it.
Or do we?
Apparently, and rather shockingly to me, we do not. Earlier this summer, I was part of a private roundtable discussion hosted by one of the big technology multinationals - all the journalists they had invited for a business event, some 20 of us from all over Europe. They wanted our perspective on various aspects of the industry. When we got around to discussing the influence of weblogs, almost every one of the group expressed disdain for the format and for bloggers, whether within the industry or without. Some of the corporate participants did, too.
Collectively, they almost saw them as potentially damaging trouble-makers with little real knowledge. The "knowledge" was reserved for the journalists of course. Only one other journalist other than me had a blog.
As one participant from a trade magazine noted: "Our readers would never trust some blogger's review of new hardware or software. That would be ridiculous. They look to us."
After I collected my jaw off the floor, I felt I had to make the point that - especially on the subject of technology, where the blogosphere has very informed writers, evangelists, technologists and creators - bloggers are not the enemy, they are your users, your customers and your readers.
They very often know more than you. They are often blogging about the real-world experience of actually using the software or hardware the journalist may only faff about with before reviewing.
Technology users are a major element of the web's population. They will read the article or the review in a publication, yes, but they will turn to the web's blogs, discussion boards and chat rooms for corroborating or differing experience and opinion.
The evidence is right out there, on the web, every day. How a journalist writing on the technology industry can miss all this burgeoning activity right in front of their noses is baffling.
Blog: www.techno-culture.com
