Bloggers as Legitimate Journalists

As a veteran blogger, about ten years of blogging under my belt, I've seen the profession/hobby evolve from "What's that?" to getting accepted as a conventional journalist at events like the recent President's Conference.

Of course, there are bloggers and there are bloggers. 

• Some bloggers have mostly inactive blogs or concentrate on subject matter that only interest their nearest and dearest at the most.
• Some blogs are like very serous news sites.
• Some blogs are "commercial" to promote a business.
• Some bloggers, like myself, run more than one blog, because I write about too wide a variety of subjects to have them all on one "site."  If I had known how my blogging would have evolved, I could have started my very own internet magazine.
• Some bloggers just blog on the larger more conventional media.  Almost all newspapers which are now online, besides paper/hardcopy, have blogs in their internet version.

Around seven years ago or more, I was given journalist seats on Nefesh B'Nefesh immigrant plane rides to Israel.  The public relations firm that worked with them just requested that I also get some regular media to promise to publish my reports, not only my blogs.  Yes, the same PR firm worked on the Presidents Conference. 

Not only did we have the same color-coded name tags as the conventional press, but a few special events were organized for us including meeting President Shimon Peres during which he answered a lot of questions from bloggers.

I managed to get to all but one of the special sessions.  On Wednesday we got to meet the Editor of Tablet who said that she would never expect writers to write for nothing, very rare in today's world.

And on Thursday we met the notorious  Peter Beinart f2f when he did his best to charm the bloggers who mostly disagreed with his published opinions.

For many of us bloggers, it was a great opportunity to get together as professionals and to forge face-to-face relationships.  We do take ourselves and our writing very seriously.  Not all bloggers were able to take off much time to attend the convention, mostly fitting it into our workday, even if that meant working at the convention itself via computer/internet in the Press Room. 

Blogging may not offer much in financial benefits, but we do offer the world professional services, and it's nice to be appreciated.