What makes a journalist?

"Anyone can cook, but not everyone can be a great chef!"

Or something like that, so says Chef Gustav in Pixar's latest movie offering, Ratatoullie.

By all counts, this can be good advice for any profession, even if it comes from an animated ghost. It we take pause to look around, we will surely notice those who are true masters of their craft, those struggling to keep it all together, and even those clueless to the fact that they are better off not doing what they are doing.

Besides cooking, writing comes across as something that most of us, with the privilege of a good education, can do. With technology, the line between the professional and amateur has blurred, as the easy availability of blogs opens up opportunities for budding writers to publish their works. Many writers took to the new tool with a wide spectrum of topics – from their life story to their pet’s life story, gossip to hobbies, politics to noble causes, short essays to whole books, and most significantly, news.

Some blogs and blog aggregators have been set up to run very much like news websites. In contrast to traditional news agencies, these rely almost exclusively on citizen journalists to fill their e-pages. Many individual writers have even established their own following of readers. In many cases, blogs have broken the news even before established print and broadcast media.

While these successes have given bloggers a nod of approval from the public, the professionals of the news trade are less celebratory. The established media have been quick to scoff at blogs; words like “unreliable”, “lack of accountability”, “naval-gazing” and “irrelevant” have often been leveled at bloggers.

“Adds an interesting dimension that complements traditional media” is about as far as the established media would go to admit that blogs are causing an impact on the way people navigate the world around them, especially for those who are no stranger to the Internet. Indeed, the value of blogs to society should be regarded as nothing less than revolutionary, given the insights and debates that some blogs generate even beyond their readership. Perhaps it is not so surprising that even the most trivial of bloggers can have their names in the limelight.

One begins to wonder if, in the world of journalism, the definition of greatness might even begin to shift to the literary pheasants and, yes, even the “rats” of the blogosphere.

Should journalists be concerned about the impact that blogs have on the writing community? Is the rising tide of voices shouting from cyberspace threatening to drown the good sense and literary excellence of the profession?

It would still be premature to decide if bloggers can or should be measured against professional writers. The majority of bloggers probably never wanted to be compared like that, anyway, so why the overt concern with rice bowl issues?

Truth be told, blogs present an interesting dimension (or a threat) to news not because of the content standards they adhere to - many bloggers can't even string together a proper sentence. Rather, they thrived because they have stuck to two age-old principles of journalism that has given the news industry its appeal since it began centuries ago.

First, timeliness. Society has gotten used to the fact that eyes on the ground and words from the horse’s mouth makes much better news than what someone else tells you. With the advent of moblogging, some readers are turning to citizen journalists first for their news fix. With editorial constraints and sheer lack of manpower, news agencies look set to play catch-up to bloggers who, not bound by any contract except an unvoiced willingness to share, trade entries and links with each other to cover all angles.

Second, relevance. Citizen journalists are mostly everyday people concerned with everyday issues that their readers can relate to. For sure, a readership of five or five hundred is nothing compared to the thousands who flip or scroll through the official dailies, but for those few, the average man's blog makes a lot more sense and touches their hearts in a way that the professionals have avoided. Professional news gatherers, either consciously or not, still struggle to define the difference between objective truth and subjective reality, and to present news within these boundaries in accordance with their editorial policies, even as reality takes precedence in people’s minds today.

As a society matures, its people will tend to believe in their own opinions, values and situations more than what others suggest, and this will have a bearing on what they choose to consume, including news and information. Whether that can and should be the case is something that history will decide, but it is a fact that is impossible to ignore.

Does this mean that professional journalists have lost the plot with their readers? Not quite yet. Indeed, reports on the recent Indonesian earthquakes in Singapore have demonstrated the news industry’s desire to stay on top. The almost-instantaneous reports screened many home videos from everyday people, mostly taken on mobile phones, of shaking chandeliers and evacuating people. Compared to the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, where similar home video footage show the horror of crashing walls of water and people being swept away, the content seems very different, but the desire to translate reality, as experienced by people on the ground, is there.

Does a reliance on pure “reality bytes”, then, make a great journalist? Again, I would hazard a no. A lecturer and mentor of mine once told me that we always write for an audience, and so what we write must be of some importance, relevance and value to them. Reflecting reality alone is not enough; a writer must also let his readers see how that reality makes sense to their situation. It need not agree with their views and beliefs, but it should definitely address these views and beliefs as valid and important concerns.

As we become more mature as a society, there is a need for journalists, traditional or online, professional or citizen, to understand and act on social desires and trends, but to temper this with a clear idea of who their readers are and deliberate on what value they can add for them. N