Are Bloggers competing with mainstream journalists?

Check out more reflections about the workshop from Ahmad Humeid

The German-Arab Media Dialogue organized by the German Foreign Office and the German Institute for Cultural Relations held in Amman last week was an important chance to discuss issues related to new media, blogging and conventional media outlets. Although the German Embassy sent many invitations to Jordanian bloggers only two showed up during the conference with active participation (Ahmad Humeid and myself). Three other bloggers appeared in various stages. I think this was a very modest participation by Jordanian bloggers in an occasion that should have more interest from the bloggers community.

Three important issues were raised during the meetingb which I am gonna blog about in this post that I hope will pave the way for more discussion.

The issues were linked together with the context of real or illusionist competition between bloggers and mainstream journalists. The journalists attending the workshop dismissed the issue of competition but in a rather arrogant manner. Mainstream journalists used three factors that distinguish traditional media from blogs and tehy were: credibility, professionalism and impact.

I have to agree on two of those factors and completely refuse a third.

I do agree that the impact of the bloggers is modest now because of the following reasons:

1- The Internet penetration in Jordan is only 15% and the Arab average is about the same. This means the readership of the blogs is narrow especially if we know that most of the blogs are personal diaries and have no media or political/economic context.

2- Bloggers are usually well educated Middle Class to top class citizens who represent a small fraction of the Jordanian society.

3- Mainstream media is supported with great financial and human resources which are available to volunteer bloggers taking a big part of their time for blogging. This means a lot of resources can be invested in mainstream media and no "blogger" can compete unless a "merger" of bloggers can be established for putting together the available resources of bloggers in one effective platform.

Regarding professionalism I agree that media and journalism is an academic profession but we should not forget the issues of creativity and dedication. Personally I have not studied journalism but practised it. I started doing "Wall magazines" in school and university which is the same concept of modern blogs and then found myself as a professional writer and communicator. Gift and dedication of bloggers can be supported by training or capacity building. I am certain that if some traditional media outlets will recruit bloggers they will get themselves some of the best potential journalists in Jordan. Some quality of blogs is far better from even the distinguished "professional" journalists and writers in Jordan and am not exaggerating here.

as for "credibility" I have to say that I am against the illusion that "mainstream media is credible and blogs are not". last week a female TV presentor in a Lebanese station made a mistake by forgetting that her microphone was open when she praised the kiiling the Lebanses Parliamentarion Eido in Beirut. The TV station owned by Nabeeh Barri had to fire the journalist but this is an indication of the volatile, politically and ideologically polarised atmosphere in "mainstream media". I think we can find the same level of bias in Al jazeerah, Al Arabiya, Future, LBC and so on. The same applies for Jordanian newspapers whether they are daily or weekly where the red lines of the governemnt or the ideological and political orientation of publishers will destroy any level of credibility.

Some bloggers are more credible than many journalists since they are free from political and ideological position as well as the attempt to praise influential persons and comapnies like we see in mainstream journalism. My own opinion is that bloggers can win the battle for credibility above mainstream journalists. I know writers in Jordan who take financial allocations from the governemnt, banks, firms or maybe political parties but I do not know about any bloggers putting themsleves to sale.

Competition between bloggers and journalists can be minimised in case of more integration of media outlets where bloggers can fill the gaps very well known in traditional media.