Are Blogger Journalists?
This questions goes around the blogs and press these days and I have a few thoughts that I would like to share in the hope they may be heard.
I personally have no good writing skills - neither in english nor in german - I have always had bad grades in school when it came to literature and writing. But I have opinions, and I have knowledge that some might not have and seek. I have information regarding me and my surrounding that might be interesting to others as those are things that others do not have access to - either because they are on a totally different planetary location or they do not know the same persons.
So for me a blog is to share my knowledge and share my information (as much as I legally can) and share my thoughts to give a piece of foundation to an understanding of the world races and ultimately for peace...
So are blogger journalists? Should they be granted the same rights as journalists? I think the questions should be turned around. Why are there people called journalists having more rights to obtain information then a normal citizen. Why can no normal citizen walk in a "press conference" and ask question that they think personally affects them? Why can no normal citizen request information that they think they have a valid concern about. Things that a normal journalist would never think of because it does not affect them personally?
My point is: every person on this planet should have the same access to all information available - be it a professional journalist who can write beautiful sentences or a common man who just writes about its gut feelings. I think the real revolution is the media revolution and only if everyone has the same unrestricted access and the same possibilities to write then we can talk about a free press. The second point always seemed the hardest. How can you give a lot of people an international voice that has the same outreach as tradtional media like TV. That point is now mute with the advent of blogging and the internet. Now we need to give us all the same voice legally. Now we have to ask for unrestricted access to all information for everybody only if we get this we will have true personal unbiased freedom of speech and freedom of thought (which is even more important). Only then we will have the power to make people wake up from their consume driven slavery....