Opinion: bloggers are not just a cheap news source

Posted by Alisa Zykova on July 21, 2008 at 1:19 PM

Local newspapers might benefit more from having healthy relationships with citizen journalists and bloggers, instead of seeing them as cheaper sources, according to Guardian.co.uk's Dave Hill.

"Good local media are important to the neighbourhoods they serve and could be great innovators, showing the way forward for journalism. In an age of rapid change in every corner of Britain they have the potential to tell grassroots stories that are not only significant in their own right but may have wider implications that national counterparts are unlikely to find or tell so well," he wrote.

He condemns the way that local British papers (namely London's Hackney Gazette) use bloggers' material to write up some articles. He mentioned that newspapers like the Gazette are allowed to refrain from mentioning the source of material (which may be a blog) but that blogs may not be "worthy of this courtesy."

Source: Guardian.co.uk through IFRA Executive News Service