Who would you rather marry: a blogger or a journalist?

I was going to say that if how journalists and bloggers treat information is anything to go by, I'd much rather marry a blogger than a journalist.

Because in this respect, journalists are conditioned to be the worst control-freaks imaginable: the kind of person who'd lock you up in a cup board and only let you out on his terms in a context where he could take all the credit for any positive attributes you may possess (yes, I know she looks great and talks sense, but that's all down to my efforts: just like Elisa DooLittle would be nowhere without her Professor Higgins, this chick would be nowhere without me).

Detail from one of my photos from a friend's wedding

Obviously, quite the opposite to how bloggers treat information, sharing it generously with anyone who will listen, often allowing it room to stand on its own without any editing, live free and all of that. The catch of course, is that if you translate this to a romantic relationship, you'd end up living in some kind of hippie commune, wouldn't you?

But if you consider how journalists are trained to treat information: how they're encouraged to walk over dead bodies to get exclusives; rip off other journalists' exclusives at the first chance; how journalists are taught they don't have friends, only contacts etc, it is rather ... eh...dehumanising, isn't it?

I have certainly stopped talking to journalists I don't know who call me for 'background' advice on the basis of issues I write about on my blog, because experience has taught me that it's likely to be a one-end street: bloggers always credit, with journalists it gets all political and it's much more likely you'll be left feeling ripped off. Now, a journalist might think here "how stupid to share information in the first place", but I'm also a blogger, hence I have conflicting inclinations: to share or not to share?

So how come I started thinking about this? Well, I read this terrible example of the journalistic epistemology at work, and I found myself wondering why I'm doing my best to spread knowledge of the wonders of social media and how to use it to your advantage. I mean, only yesterday I was giving a workshop on this, and when I came out of it I read this, and I thought: oh, dear... :

...Do not tell your journalism colleagues about Twitter! Keep it as your own secret tool.

When I first came to China as a foreign correspondent, I worked for a Dutch transportation newspaper. Later, when the Internet became available in China in the late 1990s, I found I could cover all of Asia for this paper without leaving my office.

When I paid my employer a courtesy visit at their offices in Rotterdam, I told them about the emergence of the Internet. They proudly proclaimed that they had been able, with the help of the trade union, to keep the Internet out of the editorial process. The Internet was no tool for journalists, they claimed.

I knew enough to shut up and kept covering (with the help of the Internet) Asian logistics for another two years -- until editorial resistance against the Internet failed. It took them a few months to learn that that what I did from Shanghai, they could now do just as well from Rotterdam. That spelled the unavoidable end of this gig -- but because I kept my mouth shut, it lasted much longer than I'd expected.

So instead of seeing journalistic conservatism about online media as a problem, try viewing it as your competitive edge...