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Comment by ardy42 | Hacker News Reader

> I regularly get the impression a certain slice of HN commenters think "the media" is a bunch of opinion bloggers fabricating sources to drive "an agenda". In reality, the effort for producing a deep investigative story can be equivalent to an a mid-size software engineering project in terms of person hours and expertise.

That's not just an impression, it's a fact. More than once have I seen commenters suggest (with what I assume is a straight face) that amateur bloggers can effectively replace "the media." A similar position I've seen frequently is that science reporting is worthless, and individuals should just sift through the all raw papers instead (which not even actual scientists do).

The best bloggers can do is substitute for opinion writers, since having and expressing an opinion is really a solo endeavor, regardless of where you do it. Pretty much everything else needs a bigger team and more support structure.

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I was an activist that blogged. Data gathering and analysis was exhausting. My efforts changed policies, socialized reforms.

Does your poor esteem for bloggers apply to activists like me?

I think OP was trying to make a point that the entire investigative journalism industry can't be replaced by freelance bloggers, not that freelance bloggers don't add value.

> I think OP was trying to make a point that the entire investigative journalism industry can't be replaced by freelance bloggers, not that freelance bloggers don't add value.

That's exactly it. I elided some thoughts about sustainability from my comment, but I basically think reporting is so much more labor intensive than opinionating that no configuration of amateur or part-time bloggers can substitute for all the vital civic functions of a newspaper.

That's not to say that bloggers can't to real reporting, but when they do, by necessity it will have a far narrower topical focus and will either burn out an amateur blogger or force that blogger to professionalize and evolve their blog into something a lot like a traditional media organization.

Given how much easier opinionating is, I'd wager 99%+ of bloggers will stick to it (and other easy things like link aggregation) 99%+ of the time. If you skim the cream, you could probably come up with something more-or-less comparable to a newspaper opinion page.

Agree completely. I couldn't figure out how to both save democracy and pay my bills. And I'm not well suited to the fund raising, running a non-profit org type stuff.

Only notion I have for addressing this is some kind of grant or fellowship, meaning just give prospects cash.

Your incredulity isn't much of an argument. A blogger is usually some person at a keyboard, typing. A journalist is the same.

The major difference is people going in to journalism tend not to be domain experts or leaders in their field. That means bloggers can easily substitute for investigative journalism - university professors, for example, are usually better researchers than news reporters.

In fact, in this rather divided era, it is fair to question character of most journalists and ask exactly what is positive about their contribution. Good intentions do not make good outcomes, and for most things I care about the formal media is more effective at silencing real concerns than amplifying them. Bloggers sometimes get upset about issues that are important to me and tend to sustain the coverage for years. Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groklaw . No competition I'm aware of in the media circuits for that sort of work. I'll take the bloggers thanks.

Amateur journalism came into my awareness through reading about Lovecraft. My impression is that people engaged in journalism for various hobby/interest groups, clubs through at least the 1920s and considered themselves amateurs in the sense of practice for the love of the activity itself. I can see a similar strand in 'zines and later web logs and blogs.

A rather older sense of "profession" (maybe concurrent with people calling themselves amateur journalists) meant any job which entailed a primary responsibility to the public, like a doctor, a lawyer, or a journalist. Unlike the other professions, one didn't need any educational credentials, bonding or special license to be a journalist.

Journalism is unique among the professions: in at least some sense of the word, if one considers oneself a journalist, one is a journalist.

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