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Index to this series:

1. Ethics, blogging, and journalism: The not-so-wild West
2. Are bloggers journalists? Who really cares?
3. Transparency vs. Substantiation: Two Sides of the Credibility Coin
4. What bloggers and journalists can learn from each other

Is the internet a lawless frontier rife with wild natives, verbal shootouts, vigilante commentary, quotes and facts as unverified as patent medicine claims, and content rustlers who skulk away with the bounty of legitimate news organizations?

You might think so, listening to how some mainstream journalists and editors phrase their remarks and questions about blogging.

Fortunately, this cowboys-and-Indians stance is neither deep nor universal. Sustained discussion between bloggers and journalists reveals our budding interdependence, how much we can learn from each other, and how much we can help each other. Anyway, that’s what I witnessed at a seminar I attended a couple of days ago…

On Apr. 30 I attended a half-day seminar in Denver, “Ethics in Cyberspace: How to do bloggin’ right,” offered jointly by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Denver Press Club. This was one of SPJ’s Ethics Week events.

I’ll be honest: Generally I was not thrilled with this event. I found it haphazard, strongly biased toward traditional journalism, and often poorly informed. None of these problems surprised me. However, I’ll reserve my criticisms for a later time and will here focus on the bright spots. Because the point is, nearly everyone there was present in order to learn and to share. That’s a good start.

Some of these points have been made elsewhere, but they all came up at this session and they’re worth repeating – and reflecting upon.

BLOGGING AND JOURNALISM SHARE COMMON ROOTS

The self-published mix of news, opinion, analysis, observation, experience, and ideas offered today through weblogs has a long, rich history that’s thoroughly entwined with the roots of journalism.

Remember the pamphleteers of the American Revolution? Martin Luther’s 95 Theses? The social and political commentary of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales? Or for that matter, the public discourse techniques of Socrates and Jesus Christ?

And, on the less-glamorous side, remember the era of yellow journalism? How the press uncritically reported allegations by Sen. Joseph McCarthy?

For better or worse, journalism and blogging both spring from the common human needs to learn, understand, and share.

We’re forever trying to make meaning out of our world. Traditional journalism, as practiced by many media professionals, is one path toward that goal. But it is not the only path. I think we’d all (including our audiences) make more progress if we focused more on that common goal, and haggled less over the details of our respective methods.

Journalists and bloggers can learn a great deal simply by respecting each other, and by getting to know each other better. In that sense, seminars like the one I just attended are valuable simply because they put journalists and bloggers in the same room and encourage them to interact.

NEXT: Are bloggers journalists? Who really cares?…