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Reporter vs Expert - Why Most Bloggers Are Stuck Reporting
Posted by webmoney • 3/12/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: begginers, bloggers, expert, reporter
There are basically two types of bloggers in the world - reporters and experts - and some people perform both roles (usually the experts, it’s hard for reporters to become experts, but it’s easy for experts to report).
If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course
or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.
I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert. affiliate-rocks.blogspot.com/2009/03/reporter-vs-expert-why-most-bloggers.h...
Cheers,
Julius
User Comments
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Reporting is an expertise. This takes education and if you're going to be serious about it, people skills. I really don't see much of a difference in the two. They both require a certain amount of skill which means educating oneself.
And my reporting skills just proved you copyrite infringe www.blogsavvy.net/money/reporter-vs-expert-why-most-bloggers-are-stuck-repo...-
My two cents:
Unless the blogger in question is actually reporting events that they personally witnessed and/or personally researched, and is quoting words that he or she obtained directly from the people that he or she personally interviewed, then the blogger cannot claim to be a journalist. Unless those conditions are met then the blogger is not "reporting" at all, what they are doing is writing blog posts based on second hand information ie. hearsay.
Moreover, if the blogger uses the original work of reporters who did personally witness, research and interview people involved in the event in question, without obtaining prior their permission to use their original work, then a copyright infringement has taken place.
100 Essential Legal and Privacy Guides for Bloggers
www.criminaljusticeusa.com/blog/2009/100-essential-legal-and-privacy-guides... -
Just like you can't claim an entire post as your own when it was elsewhere in Oct of 2008 without the authors permission. Can't even see where the author was given credit.
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Neither can I. What I see is a scraped post that does not meet the protocol of using only a brief excerpt, correctly attributing the original author, and providing a link back to the original source post.
10 Big Myths about copyright explained
www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
Copyright Basics (from the U.S. Copyright Office and the Library of Congress)
www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html
THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT
www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf
Plagarism versus copyright infringement
mediax0.wordpress.com/2007/02/20/plagarism-versus-copyright-infringement/
BlogCatalog Terms of Service www.blogcatalog.com/tos -
TT and Shirley: What would you ballpark a fair use attributed excerpt at? I'd say nine graphs or less. Currently I mention author, source, headline, a linkback, and use quotation marks, plus two to three original content graphs of my own to qualify the story. What are your standards? Do you use quotations, bold or indent? How do you set your reference matrial apart?
And once again, TT, thanks for the links. Now I have to do another round of cutting, pasting and bookmarking for all this good reference material. -
Depends, For something like a press release you are actually allowed to copy the whole thing as long as you provide a link from the source. For interviews I put my questions in either a different color or bold. When I am quoting I quote. "Good night and good luck." By Edward Murrow. Certain works are so old you don't need a link to and it's a free for all but the author should be given credit. This would be like Shakespeare, Plato, etc. If I am quoting I do 3 or 4 lines at most. Aprox 36 words.
Here is a post I wrote some time ago that may help some.
mythoughtsalways.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-thoughts-is-blogging-journalism.ht... -
Check this out:
www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/business/media/02scrape.html
It looks like the article says some blogs are aiming for five graphs or less. Also, it looks like AdWords and other advertising revenue on a blog is another general sticking point. -
Journalistic sites such as Associated Press require a payment to use their content. That is only fair someone else worked for that. Scraping is the equivalent of a full copy and paste job. Blogs that do this, especially from newspaper sources get sued.
Also, we are crafty we have learned the new lingo we are required to learn SEO stuff and reporters don't typically do that. Some of us get paid a lot and newspapers are going under partially because of us and partially because they aren't up on technology. -
TT and Shirley: What would you ballpark a fair use attributed excerpt at? I'd say nine graphs or less. Currently I mention author, source, headline, a linkback, and use quotation marks, plus two to three original content graphs of my own to qualify the story. What are your standards? Do you use quotations, bold or indent? How do you set your reference matrial apart?
When I quote something, I usually try and only use what is relevant - one, maybe two paragraphs as a reference, because that's all I typically do - use them for reference. I link to the original source, and make sure to list the title, source, or author (whatever's applicable) and I use quotations, italics, and block quoting.
Which, by the way you should use block quoting when you are quoting anything over a few lines. (I DID remember my English class lessons!
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Thanks Anok and Shirley. I wonder if a stated "fair use" editorial policy on a person's blog would help? It might help readers understand a blogger's editorial MO.
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I have a fair use statement at the bottom of my blog.
Essentially, I don't care if people use my stuff, so long as it's not plagiarism, or scraping (both of which are intellectually lazy) then I really don't care if it's used.
In fact, I'm rather happy that it is. Although I do appreciate the link
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@gtally
I don't have a ballpark figure for you. I gave up leaving anything to the discretion of others given the experience I have had online with people, who have no moral or ethical base at all, or at least none that I could discern.
Therefore I copyright and disclaimer policy on both of my blogs, and, in part, this is what it says:
onecoolsite
Copyright and Disclaimer
Copyright © 2007 - 2009 All Rights Reserved
All content in this blog created by the blog owner is the property of the blog owner and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and cannot be stored on any retrieval system, reproduced, reposted, displayed, modified or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise without written permission of the copyright owner except as noted below.
A brief excerpt of content (up to 50 words) may be quoted as long as a link is provided back to the source page on this blog and the authorship is correctly attributed.
Read the whole thing including the Fair Use provision here --> onecoolsite.wordpress.com/disclaimer/
thistimethisspace
Copyright © 2007 - 2009 All Rights Reserved
For copyright purposes, this time ~ this space is not in the public domain. The fact that this blog owner publishes an RSS feed does not grant any rights for republication or re-use of the material except in the manner described. All content on this blog is the property of the blog owner and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and cannot be stored on any retrieval system, reproduced, reposted, displayed, modified or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise without written permission of the copyright owner except as noted below.
A brief excerpt of content that does not exceed 50 words may be quoted as long as a link is provided back to the source page on this blog and authorship is properly attributed.
Read the rest here --> thistimethisspace.com/copyright/
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U.S. copyright office www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html
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Opinions only count given a proper status of the blogger.
Informative posts are often more welcome among readers I think. After all, it is hard to reach a wider audience just simply because one mere person's view on something... -
Opinions don't make anyone an reporter. So I don't see the connection. -
Unfortunately @timethief, @shiley have missed the boat on this one..
Just because there is duplicate content on the internet, DOES NOT MEAN THAT SOMEBODY STOLE THE CONTENT OR IS VIOLATING COPYRIGHT
(although that may be the case)
Many people write EZINE articles and they are free to use - word for word - anywhere anytime as many times on the internet as possible - as long as resource box of information (author, site, etc) are present
Many people write PLR articles and they sell them for use (but they limit the number of buyers of their content) - any way the buyer wants to (as is, modified, or partial etC) and there is no requirement to list any author or resourceful type of information.
The reality is - it is quite possible that there are many instances of the same article on the internet and it's perfectly legit. In all cases, if you aren't the first one to post it on the internet .. you should reword or even rewrite or modify it - because the 2nd and 3rd instances of the same article will always be seen as the copy and be discounted in the search engines.
EG - if you were reporters and researching - you would have found the answers here:
www.google.com/search?q="There+are+basically+two+types+of+bloggers+in+the+w...(usually+the+experts,+it’s+hard+for+reporters+to+become+experts,+but+it’s+easy+for+experts+to+report)."&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_en___CA233
This is where people who "assume" things cause more problems .... when asking the questions would be more appropriate e.g. - if he didn't write it - who did?-
"Your search - \ - did not match any documents. " ??? I typed in what is the difference between experts and reporters and got this www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=What+is+the+difference+between+experts+and+re...
There is only one such article. The rest is expert village, legal experts, yadda, yadda, yadda...
Though I went on copyscape and there are tons of the same article. Maybe I am wrong but at least I can admit it. Press releases are the same way. (whisper) That's why I put my link. -
ack .. sorry - that search wasn't that great when it cuts off in the middle.
The article was first published October 2007 by Yaro Starak on his own blog (www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/758/most-bloggers-are-reporters/) and then subsequently submitted to article directories .. Some were copied from the article directories with his resource info in tack, and other were scraping his content and usually have the "blogmastermind" link at the end of the article instead of the actual resource info.
Here's a short URL of my search above
x22c.com/EVBDW/
(but the point was made about the possibility of Private Label Rights articles (PLR) that you might find in the searches by doing simple searches, often lead to the wrong conclusion -
Still can admit when I'm wrong.
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I wasn't trying to show off or anything .. I just remember one person who was thought to be doing the same and was ganged up by the mob and nearly quit blogging out of fear and people badmouthing that person everywhere but that incident was about PLR's
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@petlvr
Thanks for your contribution. I'm really busy right now with contracted work. I did not devote any time or energy to researching this particular instance. I simply replied to Shirley saying:
Neither do I. What I see is a scraped post that does not meet the protocol of using only a brief excerpt, correctly attributing the original author, and providing a link back to the original source post.
That is the protocol and I assumed if webmoney had something to say he would say it. Setting that aside, I hope that my main point has not been not lost in all this blah, blah, blah ... so I'll put it in another comment box. -
I too felt the same way.
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webmoney said:
"There are basically two types of bloggers in the world - reporters and experts - and some people perform both roles (usually the experts, it’s hard for reporters to become experts, but it’s easy for experts to report). ...
I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert."
What I said is found in the very first comment I made above. IMO bloggers who derive their material from media sources and then use it to compose blog posts cannot legitimately lay claim to be journalists. Unless the blogger in question is actually reporting events that they personally witnessed and/or personally researched, and is quoting words that he or she obtained directly from the people that he or she personally interviewed, then the blogger is not reporting at all, what they are doing is writing blog posts based on secondhand information. -
A cool topic. I feel I am more of an expert with how I write my blog, I explain how to do things in web development, mostly I write tips that I have figured out myself through years of practice.
ALL my readers love my blog. In fact, both of them have walked away with useful information -
PetLvr is right, I got this article from Yaro Starak
on his Blogmastermind affiliate programs, and I had a
permission to published or shared his article.
Read more at my blog. -
Why bloggers are stuck reporting?
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