Is a Blogger a Journalist?

The decline of print journalism is creating a host of new challenges for public relations pros. However, the dramatic drop in print reporting has been matched by an equally significant surge in new media reporting, namely: bloggers.

PR pros need relationships with reputable bloggers to take over print journalism’s role of telling their company’s story. And bloggers need PR pros to provide access to company experts, and fulfill time-consuming requests for information and materials.

Relationship building with bloggers can be complicated. Bloggers can build up a solid reputation and good site traffic, only to quit suddenly. The demands of maintaining a blog are substantial while the compensation might be quite low. It can also be hard to gauge the influence of a relatively new blog.

A core value of earned media has always been its third-party validation of your brand or product, and a blog post about your company serves the same role. So a good test before engaging with a blogger is to ask yourself: Would readers of the blog consider the site to be a credible source?