On April 24, 1704, The Boston News-Letter published its first issue and became the first newspaper printed in America. To say we’ve come a long way since then would be like saying the Beatles were successful musicians.

The dissemination of information now has never been cheaper, wider or arguably more convoluted. From newspapers to the world wide web, the need for instantaneous information has evolved the average citizen into a reporter of their own information.

As news outlets call for "iReporters" (CNN) and "Younews" (KATU) submissions, citizen journalism becomes increasingly more mainstream. Wearing a bathrobe as armor and wielding a laptop computer as their sword, a new breed of journalists are beginning to push the limits of what constitutes professional journalism and, in Oregon, the task of being a government watchdog.

Late in 2008, the Lake Oswego City Council found themselves in the middle of defining this profession. A blogger, Mark Buntner who publishes under the pseudonym of Torrid Joe at loadedorygun.net, attempted to sit in on an executive session of the council. Because of Oregon's "sunshine" laws, most executive sessions are open to the media. According to the minutes of the meeting, however, the blogger was asked to leave. Attending the non-public meetings of council members requires what Lake Oswego's City Attorney David Powell calls a "good faith accountability" between a reporter and the city government. But if a blogger is only accountable to themselves, how can it be enforced?  

Powell told the Lake Oswego City Council that "they were not trying to define media for First Amendment or legitimacy purposes, but solely for accountability, so that the City had some recourse in the event of a violation of the [executive session] policy."

The Lake Oswego City Council's movement was echoed at a later City of Independence council meeting. At Independence's meeting, The Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association and others requested that the council consider action on the agenda item at a later date. The City of Independence council complied with those requests.

This complex issue is still being tackled in Independence and other city meetings around the state. How do we define “real” journalistic media? Are bloggers journalists? If the First Amendment doesn't define media, who or what does?

“It is an ongoing discussion we are having with the Oregon Newspaper Association,” said Scott Winkels, Intergovernmental Relations associate for the League of Oregon Cities. “There is a unique exemption allowing media members to attend executive sessions of town council meetings, and we would like to make sure the journalists we let in adhere to a professional editorial policy and code of conduct.”

Nathaniel I. Cordova, associate professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies at Willamette University, said that today there is so much coverage that people don’t know whom to believe.

“(The terms) journalism and media have always been notoriously difficult to define,” said Cordova. “Basically, it is a means of conveying information to large audiences.”

As Cordova explained, journalism used to be a craft people spent their lives learning and practicing; thereby over the course of time, it became a profession with a clearly defined code of ethics. Now, anyone with a computer and Internet access can call themselves a journalist.

“Today’s media is very fragmented,” he said. “It used to be more formal with broadcast news, but now people are getting their news everywhere and they want it to be ‘mobile.’”

The ‘Blogosphere’ Invades Mainstream Media

How does one assess a blogger’s credibility? To what standard are they accountable? How does one seek redress in the event of alleged libel? 

Cordova said the best way for the public to be able to take bloggers seriously is to have them adhere to the same code of conduct and ethics as traditional media members.

Kari Chisholm, president of Mandate Media Inc. in Portland, has a slightly different point of view on journalism and blogging. 

“A journalist is someone who calls people for comments, does fact checking and research, and assembles those facts into a story,” Chisholm said. “I’m not a journalist; I’m a political activist. [Political] blogging is very derivative. I comment on what I see in the news. It’s only my opinion.”

Chisholm runs the Web site BlueOregon.com, which as the site states, “is a place for progressive Oregonians to gather 'round the water cooler and share news, commentary, and gossip.” He said that there is a movement to stop using the term “blogger” because it’s too ambiguous.

“The vast majority of bloggers are ordinary people, using their blog to post pictures of themselves and other personal things,” he said. “However, reporters who write for newspapers like The Oregonian, for example, also have blogs, so it’s not simple to say who is a journalist and who is not.”

Chisholm also doesn’t believe that a code of ethics is much help in defining who is a journalist. “If all bloggers got together and created a code of ethics, would they then be considered journalists? No.”

For cities like Lake Oswego, wrestling with the question of whom to let into its closed sessions, Chisholm said that he would have them make sure the journalist is part of a larger organization, with a specific yearly revenue amount.

“What I would hate to see is closed sessions populated by just anyone who happens to have a blog,” he said.

Newspapers: A Dead Industry?

Newspapers are not dead, Cordova said. They just need to change their way of thinking.

Signs of how newspapers are changing with the times are occurring frequently.

In the windy city, the new tabloid-size Chicago Tribune will be an alternative to its traditional broadsheet edition that subscribers will continue to receive. The new edition features the same editorial content, save for minor differences in headlines, photos and captions.

A Chicago Tribune story from January 14 states:

“This format shift by the Tribune represents a surprising notion that there might still be room for growth in old-fashioned newsprint for an industry struggling with hard economic realities and trying to develop a business model for the Internet.”

Cordova said in order for newspapers to compete with the Internet, they need to specialize in one particular form of journalism - such as politics or entertainment - and make it clear to the readership why they are best at that form.

“Excellent journalism is not dead,” he said. “It’s just changing too fast and newspapers are having trouble keeping up.”

What’s Next?

According to Cordova, the future of journalism lies in what is best for the public interest. 

“Because today’s world consists of a 24-hour news cycle, filled primarily with ‘fluff,’ journalists need to figure out how to regain people’s trust,” he said. 

One way the Web has gained people’s trust and readership is by allowing consumers to program their own media experience. Whether through Google News or personalizing My Yahoo or an RSS news feed reader, one can get instant access to media outlets and whichever journalism sources are wanted on one Web page. Some newspaper executives have railed against the quick-hit news on the Internet, but the vast majority are working on their own ways of aggregating content from other sources or offering up personalized versions of their own sites.

Cordova and Chisholm agree that the collaborative efforts of bloggers, community media and mainstream news outlets have already had a significant impact on society.

Cordova said that in the future, people will see many more of these collaborative investigations as communication online and experiments continue to grow.