Respect the Blog!

Several years ago, before I was a blogger myself, I had found my way to my grown son's blog. I read it for several weeks before one day I ventured to make a comment. I signed it "Mom".

Another young blogger followed that comment with this: "How would you feel if you knew your mom read your blog? Xxxx knows."



Xxxx assured me that it didn't bother him at all.
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A blog is a tool. Bloggers blog for a variety of reasons. Some want an outlet for their creative side--whether writing, art, or photography. Others have a cause they are passionate about and blog tirelessly to promote it. Some just have things they want to share.

Like any tool, a blog can be used or misused. (Sometimes by the blogger and sometimes by its readers.)

Is a blog a journalistic tool? Could be. Like I said, it has a variety of purposes.

Don Mills Diva is a trained journalist with a blog. Is her blog a piece of journalism? Maybe sometimes. It is other things, too. After having been misquoted and inaccurately attributed by a supposedly "real" journalist in an article in a seemingly respectable newspaper, she has established this "Respect the Blog" badge, which I will proudly display in my sidebar. (I was in the process of saying "a seemingly respectable newspaper article, but changed it to read as it did because the article ended up being a promotional piece for the author's new book.) Go read her posts about it here and here, and see if you, as a blogger, aren't also rather incensed.

A newspaper is also a tool. Unfortunately, since this article appears online, I can't use that tool as mulch or papier maiche.