Based in Johannesburg, The Times newspaper now offers almost totally uncensored posts from a handful of selected bloggers. They call these writers blogumists. They call the postings blogumns. Here's a link to these posts which The Times describes as 'Exclusive daily musings written by bloggers for The Times.' Here is a link to The Time's home page.
If you can't beat 'em, let 'em join you?
Having been a newspaper reporter once upon a time long ago, I wonder how the professional journalists at The Times feel about these citizen journalists? What happens if one of their blogumists writes a post critical of the print media? Are the writings of these blogumists fact-checked? As a blogumist for The Times, is the blogger afforded all the same protections generally associated with newspaper reporters? Is the newspaper liable for what it prints under the byline of a blogger? Since The Times says, "...these blogumns are left unedited 98.999% uncensored," what sort of copy represents the 1.001% of unacceptable content?
By the way, I'm guilty here of asking questions that I often get, and which I tend to categorize as just another rock in my shoe. Social media is supposed to be a little open ended and free-wheeling. If we wait around for everything to get figured out, we'll never get anything started.
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