Words mean things

There is an interesting article in BusinessWeek Online about whether bloggers are journalists:

So is a blogger a journalist? Certainly, some organizations have begun to legitimize Web logs as a valid grassroots form of journalism. In 2004, bloggers for the first time received press passes to cover the conventions during the Presidential elections. They have broken major news stories. Several prominent bloggers have become media pundits. And mainstream media outfits, including BusinessWeek Online, are developing blogs to complement their traditional outlets.

The question of whether a blogger is a journalist is separate from the question of whether mainstream journalists accept them as fellow journalists. It is akin to asking if a man who writes is a writer if he's not labeled so by the Writer's Guild, or if a man who tends cows is a cowboy if he's not sanctioned by the local rodeo, or if a person who evangelizes is an evangelist if he's not recognized by a particular group. Is a Christian not a Christian just because someone doesn't recognize him as such?

A person may be good or bad at any of these functions. He may do them with or without financial support from some organization on a full- or part-time basis. But if he does them at all, he fits the description of the word at the time that he does them.

I am a writer when I write, a blogger when I blog, an evangelist when I do the work of one, and a husband, dad, and believer 24/7. I am a builder when I build, a preacher when I preach, a thinker when I think, and a sinner when I sin. Our Christian walk is about using all of our activities, sans the sin, so that our lives honor our Creator. Now those are words that mean something to me.

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