Saturday, August 19, 2017

Learn, UnLearn and ReLearn: Are Bloggers Required to Be Experts, or at Par with Journalists?


Wazzup Pilipinas! 

Those new Chevening scholars from the media know better that even though they know a lot already and are experts already in skills like making Documentaries, they still are willing to learn more from other experts.

"Chevening Scholarships are the UK government’s global scholarship programme, funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and partner organisations. The programme offers awards to outstanding scholars with leadership potential from around the world to study for a master’s degree in any subject at any UK university." - Scholars4Dev

We believe that there are so many things that could be Re-learned or Un-Learned in order to improve oneself. They don't do it on their own. They look for ways to learn even if it means learning it from other people.

This is why many organizations still offer their services to even professionals because LIFE is supposed to be a never-ending learning process. Do not assume that everyone around you should know better, especially bloggers who mostly do not have formal training on covering events like how journalists do it.

Bloggers attend events for the experience. Although preferred, they should not be required to be experts when they attend events like an Italian Food Tasting. Don't expect them to know about Croxetti and other sophisticated or high-end Italian dishes, and then criticize them all over social media to prove some vague points. It was never their fault the event organizers decided to invite them at their event.

And for the other "well-respected" blogger to gossip about them, who did nothing to correct the mistakes of the "clueless" bloggers, we no longer believe you deserve the respect based from what you did. If we were you, we could have approached the other bloggers in a friendly way and told them right there and then that particular Italian dish is supposed to taste like that.

This reminded me about the story of a foreign restaurant owner about a top food blogger who criticized his authentic Buffalo Wings because of its taste. Unknown to the top food blogger, that is the actual authentic taste based from the original.

As we can see, most of us taste food based on our own preference, we do not really need to know the technicalities if we just want to share our own preference for food. Though it helps to be informed of how dishes are supposed to taste, you don't expect everyone around you should be as knowledgeable as you are.

Don't try to make bloggers like the well-trained journalists, broadcasters, and other members of trad media. They may opt to level up to that direction, but they are absolutely not required at all. There is a great reason why they are called bloggers. Don't try to make them something else other than people who find joy in experiencing what life has to offer.

Bear in mind that we are not trying to make this a bloggers-versus-trad media issue, it just so happens that the thread starter is a member of the media and people involved in the issue he raised are bloggers.

No comments:

Post a Comment