For us Philadelphia residents this Phillies parade is huge.  It has been 25 years since a Philadelphia sports team won the big game.  That was 1983 when the Phillies won the World Series.  That World Series Parade was huge and I expect this Philadelphia Phillies World Series Parade to be even bigger.

What activities does the press engage in? Are these that different than the activities of bloggers?

Sure a majority of bloggers are not "professional" journalists, but I think that the activities performed by bloggers are very similar to those of journalists. Let's look at the activities that journalists perform and compare them to activities of bloggers.

• Journalists report the news - Many bloggers do too. In fact, I do. When MMO developers make statements or put out videos or press releases, I read those press releases and update my readers about the latest news.
• Journalists research issues - I argue that bloggers do just as much research as journalists. After my first year of law school, I worked in the government relations office of a large fortune 500 company. Part of my job was to write a newsletter describing the hearings that were taking place on Capitol Hill, the State Department and the Federal Communications Commission. Let me tell you: the tasks that I performed in this job were not that much different than the tasks that I perform today as a blogger. I would attend hearings, read newspaper reports and trade journals, and then write summaries of these events. Bloggers around the country are doing the same thing.

When you break it down, the press reports the news. I can't see where bloggers don't do this too.

Is a journalism degree necessary to qualify as a member of the press?

One argument that I heard a lot on Shut Up We're Talking was that bloggers are not educated in the art of journalism and therefore they are not part of the press. Well, that may or may not be true. I am sure that there are many bloggers that were journalism majors in college. However, I think that having a journalism degree is a pretty weak criteria for being part of the press. Sure some bloggers may not be formally educated in journalism, but like any writer, bloggers use their own education, experience and knowledge to communicate with their readers. I might not have been a journalism major, but when I write I draw upon my own education in international relations and law to express my thoughts. This is very similar to journalists except that we come from slightly different academic backgrounds.

What media do you have to work with in order to be part of the press?

Another argument made was that the press writes for newspapers and television broadcast stations. Boy, that is a really narrow definition of the press. I am sure that newspapermen made that argument about radio newsmen when radio first came out. What we are seeing with blogging is new medium born from the way people surf the Internet. When people surf the Internet, they scan and skim news articles. This allows bloggers to write shorter, easily scannable copy.

You can see this in television as well. Television news is much more abbreviated than that found in newspapers. The stories do not go into as much detail. Television relies on images and video to help describe the story. Therefore the text of what is read is shorter and not as detailed.

So which bloggers are part of the press?

I certainly do not believe that all bloggers are part of the press. I am not that much different from the writers of PC gaming magazines, so for my niche, I would consider myself part of the gaming press. It is hard to argue that Matt Drudge is not part of the press. He only broke the story that lead to impeachment trials against the President of the United States. Perez Hilton is doing almost the same thing as Extra and People Magazine. The Daily Kos and Powerline provide news about the latest in politics.

In conclusion, the definition of the press is changing as it always has. During the American Revolution, pamphleteers, such as Thomas Paine, became part of the press. The definition of the "press" is constantly evolving as technology introduces new media for people to express ideas.

Anyway, this is how it works:

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Geek Train - All aboard!

1 - Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and linkback to the blog(s) that put you on the list in the paragraph. You MUST do this. No-one plans on getting slapped for duplicate content any time soon, do they?

2 - Next, copy the list of originals below COMPLETELY and add it to your own blog. If you’d like a different keyword for your blog then change it, when you do your post, and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword, provided the train keeps on spreading.

3 - Take the adds from the blog that added you and place them in the “Originals” list.

4 - Add at least three new favourite blogs of yours to keep the train going, e-mail the blog owners (or comment on one of their posts) and insist that they post.

My Adds:

(The funny ones) Keen and Graev
(The lucky one) Cuppycake
(The talkative one) Adele Caelia
The Originals:

(The kick-ass) Nate Whitehill
(The original) 13-Year Old Blogger
(The money-making) Affiliate Marketing guide
(The overclocker) Shawn Knight
(The incredible) Chris Hooley
(The rhetorical) Michael Kwan
(The talented) Leo Chiang
(The root of all evil) John Chow
(The business dude) Josh Mullineaux
(The brilliant) Shoemoney
(The absurdly loud) Ed Lau
(The mastermind) Jon Waraas
(The yaketty) Stephen Fung
(The wickedly cool) Everton Blair
(The uber blogger) Ms Danielle
(The AdSense magician) Michael Cheney
(The enterprising) Matt Coddington
(The monetizing minded) Daily Web Ideas
(The legendary) Gary Lee
(The nifty) Dosh Dosh
(The ambitious) Jeff Kee
(The crafty two at) TechRave
(The deaf guy) Deaf Musician
(The social guy) Alex Ion
(The cool guy) Ryan Shamus
(The wise one) MMO Explorer

This link train is the brainchild of David Wilkinson, hyper, money-making kid, and kick-ass blog designer Nate Whitehill.

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If you didn’t get tug? Don’t worry! Just add yourself onto the list, including the originals by posting on your own site, and start right away!