What is the difference between a blogger and a journalist?

Sharing information is getting easier now. Everybody can do it. Blog and social media also have the great role here. Those media allows people to share any information and being a journalist. Although it has been a debate, bloggers also have the similar role are journalists. The difference between bloggers and journalists is just located on the training. Not every blogger gets journalist training. This is why their stories look more flexible than the journalist’s stories. If you want to be a journalist and start your career from blogging, you can try this. But you also need to take a note to the fundamental of journalism is also necessary. It will improve your writing and make it looks more professional. Headlines and Leads Headline and lead must be the most interesting part on an article. The idea behind those parts is to make the beginning of the article looks attractive and deserve to read. When people read the beginning of the article and interested with it, course they will read the entire content to see the detail. Headline and lead are also useful to give the big image of the content, specifically to the readers. The key to make the good headline and lead is provocative, curiosity, stimulating the readers. For this, facts must be included on it. Clarity A good story can be seen from its content. It must be informative and useful for the readers. Beside it, it must be clear too. You have to make it easy to understand and keep the sentence short. Making the long sentence will only confusing the readers. Even worse, the readers will lose the message. Using too many words to express an idea is also not recommended. To send the message well, make sure to use the simple language. Distinguish the Facts from Opinions As a writer, you should be responsible. You can tell your opinion about something, but make sure to distinguish the opinions and the facts. Tell the fact as a fact and the opinion as opinion, do not blend it. This tip also related to the clarity of the content. If you blend the opinion and the fact, it will lead the reader to the wrong way. Your story is not fair and objective anymore. In the other words, it breaks the journalism ethics. Verify the Facts Rumors can hide the facts. If you are getting the topic from the internet, you have to identify it. Is it fact or just a rumor? You can write rumors, but make sure the readers know it too. You can do it by informing it through the content. Make it clear and tell this is just a rumor. But of course it will be better to write the facts only. Rumor is just for additional. This is to make the story more colorful only. To see the reliability of the information, you have to verify it before writing a story. If you are writing an opinion article, you can ignore it. But if you write it as a news, make sure to verify it first.