Before you read another word of this, consider who wrote it. Not in an existential sense – just the practical question of what category of person sits here, typing. A journalist? Almost certainly not, by any legal definition. A publisher? Possibly, in the loosest sense. A worker? That's where it gets genuinely strange, because the honest answer is: nobody has properly decided.

The word "blog" is short for "weblog", which is short for the most boring possible description of what it was – a logged record of websites someone found interesting. That was 1997. Within ten years it had become a global form of publishing, a career path, a political force, a cause of several lawsuits. It became a category of human being that existing labour law had absolutely no idea what to do with.

A Century of Scaffolding, Then a Trap Door

To understand why that matters, it helps to know how much scaffolding journalism spent a century quietly building around itself.

Trade unions negotiated minimum rates for staff writers. Press regulators created codes of conduct. Courts established that a journalist working for a publication sat inside a chain of editorial responsibility – if something went wrong, the editor answered, the publication answered, the journalist had cover. Accreditation schemes sprang up, giving reporters access to courts, press conferences and crime scenes. The National Union of Journalists, founded in 1907, spent decades building a professional identity with legal weight behind it.

None of that applied to bloggers when they arrived. And – this is the part that surprises people – it still largely doesn't.

Sued for Things a Tabloid Would Walk Away From

The practical consequences are stranger than you might expect.

A staff journalist at a national newspaper who makes a defamatory claim is, in the first instance, the problem of their employer. The publication carries insurance, legal departments, a duty of care to the writer. A blogger who makes the same claim? They're personally liable, as an individual, for the full weight of a defamation action – no editorial chain to absorb the hit. This has actually happened, repeatedly, with bloggers in the UK receiving legal letters that would have been directed at an editor if the piece had appeared in print.

At the same time, a blogger who breaks a genuine story of public interest is unlikely to be protected under source confidentiality in the same way a journalist might be. The shield that a reporter can hold up when a court asks them to reveal their sources has, in several cases, been found not to extend to independent online writers.

For a wider look at the economic structures sitting behind all kinds of publishing – including who sets the prices that make the whole thing run – The Factory That Sets Every Price You Pay.

The Press Pass That Goes to the Freesheet First

Here's a small, practical illustration. A reporter from a local freesheet with a print circulation of four thousand people can, in most cases, apply for press accreditation to a court, a political press conference, or a sporting event and expect to be taken seriously. A blogger with a genuine readership of forty thousand monthly readers, covering the same beat, will often be turned away – or simply ignored when they apply.

This isn't arbitrary snobbery, well, not entirely. It reflects the fact that press accreditation systems were built around legal entities – publications that could be held responsible if something went badly. A blogger is, structurally, a person with a website. The accreditation infrastructure wasn't built to handle that, and twenty-five years in, it still hasn't quite caught up.

Freedom, Or Just the Absence of Protection?

There's a version of this story where the blogger's outsider status is romantic – scrappy independence, no editorial boss, answering to nobody. And it can genuinely feel that way, which is part of why so many people never notice the gap until they're standing in it.

But what looks like freedom is, rather a lot of the time, simply the absence of the things that took journalism a century to build. The union rate. The liability shield. The editorial chain. The press pass. The right to a byline that means something legally. A staff writer on the lowest rung of a regional paper has more formal protection than most people who write on the internet for a living.

The blog post floats freely across the web, with no particular status and no particular cover. Which is a fascinating position for a form of publishing that now shapes how most people encounter information about almost everything.

FAQ

Is a blogger legally classed as a journalist?

Almost certainly not, by any legal definition. Blogging grew from a 1997 record of interesting websites into a global form of publishing, but nobody has properly decided what category of worker a blogger is. Labour law had no idea what to do with them, and the position still largely hasn’t changed.

Are bloggers personally liable for defamation?

Yes, a blogger is personally liable as an individual for the full weight of a defamation action. A staff journalist’s employer usually carries the problem, along with insurance, legal departments and a duty of care. A blogger has no editorial chain to absorb the hit, and UK bloggers have received legal letters that would have gone to an editor.

Can a blogger protect their sources like a journalist can?

Not reliably. The shield a reporter can hold up when a court asks them to reveal sources has, in several cases, been found not to extend to independent online writers. So a blogger who breaks a genuine story of public interest is unlikely to be protected by source confidentiality in the same way a journalist might be.

Why do bloggers struggle to get press accreditation?

Accreditation systems were built around legal entities, meaning publications that could be held responsible if something went wrong. A blogger is structurally a person with a website, so even one with forty thousand monthly readers is often turned away or ignored, while a freesheet reporter with four thousand print readers is usually taken seriously.