What is a Blog? Let’s Define It.
What is a Blog?
Of course blogs have their roots in journalism, both in hard news and commentary. Overall, in the field of traditional journalism, they resemble columns most closely. A blogger might be considered a cyber-columnist. But that would not be as much fun to say as “blogger,” a word that sounds like a gastrointestinal malady.
At it’s worst, I think, “Bleck, not another blog!”
In the realm of RAVISHING versus ugly words, blogger comes in the “ugly to downright wonky” category.
It is a dumpy word that hides treasures, and I have to admit I’ve grown to delight in its weird futuristic homeliness.
Here is how Merriam Webster defines a blog:
Definition of blog
- 1 computers : a website that contains online personal reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks, videos, and photographs provided by the writer; also : the contents of such a site
- 2 : a regular feature appearing as part of an online publication that typically relates to a particular topic and consists of articles and personal commentary by one or more authors a technology blog
blog
verb
blogger
noun
blogging
noun
bloggy
play \ˈblȯ-gē, ˈblä-\ adjective,
bloggier
;
bloggiest
Well, just how bloggy are you feeling today? Are you bloggier than yesterday? Can you recall the one moment when you were at your bloggiest? I hear the words “blab” and “fog” somewhere in the heart of this strange word. But in fact, a great blog eschews both.
Simple “blab” doesn’t provide the reader with quality information.
And foggy writing is an exercise in reader exhaustion.
So, as we look at the antithesis of this, good blogging combines commentary and valued facts or education. The commentary should not obscure the enlightenment but rather enhance it.
Some bloggers just blab. They make up stuff and cultivate large uninformed and destructive audiences.
The proffer alternative facts and lie for profit.
These bloggers quite simply may make a ton of money, but they are going to hell!
Well, they are already there, really.
The most honest bloggers understand that they are trying to be journalists in a morphed form. If they can keep this in mind, and take the time to study the rules of journalism encompassing hard news, along with column and feature writing, little transition is needed when one takes that first leap into the blogosphere.
Unfortunately, too many bloggers travel without a map and land at their destinations without any real distinction or PURPOSE.
So, before beginning a career in blogging, consider what hard news writers do. They dig for new information, and they present it without commentary.
Columnists should be taking hard news or some information and adding enlightenment to it, not just a blabbermouth opinion.
Feature writers open themselves up to explore the heart of a story in great depth, in print, often going beyond the normal word count of a blog, which can stretch anywhere from 300 words to 3,000.
Most blogs average one thousand words. However, you are not going to be sent to jail if your blogs come in with a lower or higher word count.
Just remember, the average American today is pretty stupid and doesn’t like to read. And then blog on with dignity and purpose.