Blogs: Gossip or information sites

A “blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog”, a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog features diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites, usually presented as a list of entries in reverse chronological order. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and […]

A “blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog”, a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog features diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites, usually presented as a list of entries in reverse chronological order. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.
Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as web design, home staging, sports or mobile technology. Some are more eclectic, presenting links to all types of other sites. And others are more like personal journals, presenting the author’s daily life and thoughts. Some private bloggers use their blogs to write poems, stories and short pieces like news. Blogs tend to share common characteristics, with a few exceptions.
A main content area of blogs features articles listed chronologically, leading with the most topical. Often, the articles are organised into categories:
An archive of older articles.
A way for people to leave comments about articles.
One or more “feeds” like Rich Site Summary (RSS), Atom or Resource Description Framework (RDF) files.
The primary function of blogs is to pass information to people who wouldn’t have the time to buy newspapers, magazines or journals to read. But these days, when you go online you discover that these blogs deviate from their original purpose.
These blogs have left the original purpose of their existence. Every blogger is a journalist, and it is a well-known fact that journalists write news and other types of stories on crime, education, health, sports, e.t.c. But what do these bloggers write about? They focus mainly on lifestyle news which involve one celebrity or the other and sometimes, when they report these stories, their facts are not straight, thereby making the stories one-sided, which is against the ethics of journalism. As a result, these blogs have become more of gossip sites than information sites. A lot of these blogs exist today.
Different types of blogs use different domain names such as wordpress.com blogspot.com. In Nigeria, blogs in use include Lindaikeji.blogspot.com, bellanaija.blogspot.com, tredyrammy.blogspot.com (for fashion-minded people), tiwasblog .blogspot.com e.t.c. Some of these sites are known to carry stories on popular celebrities and sometimes, they are one-sided and lack little or no facts to back up the stories.
This brings us to the disadvantages of blogs. The contents on these sites lack sufficient materials that make the stories news-worthy. They do not dig deep into the facts before publishing them, and as such the stories become either one-sided or untrue. Bloggers see themselves as journalists because they disseminate information, although online. Blogging and journalism are two different things although they tend to have a sole purpose, which is giving out information. But in recent times, bloggers have deviated from that course.
There are lots of things bloggers (and even those who wish to own a blog) need to know about blogging. This would be discussed next week.