It’s funny how much our opinions can change. Just last year, I was still an undergrad at Quinnipiac University in lovely Hamden, CT. I was a Print Journalism major, and it was the School of Communications that drew me to the QU in the first place. I got a great education that was not limited to mainstream journalism, but included courses on interactive journalism and computer-assisted reporting. Combine that with three internships and a minor in Information Systems Management, and I was totally ready to jump into my ever-changing field armed with knowledge and experience.

As it turned out, I ended up working for an online ad network as Marketing Assistant, a job I love, but never expected, but that’s a different post for a different day. One thing that I didn’t mention is that my journalism education also gave me a very strong opinion about bloggers and the blogging space in general. Through no fault of any particular professor or text book, I saw bloggers as wannabe journalists who threatened the legitimacy of reporting and didn’t have much credibility. Well, would you look at me now? Here I am, writing about bloggers on my blog. If you had told me that a year ago, I never would have believed you.

So, what caused such a change of heart? I gave the blogosphere a chance. It was a gradual process, and I don’t think I even realized what was happening at the time. One of my responsibilities at CPX is to serve as admin for our three company blogs (yes, that was a shameless plug). When I first started, I had to confront the very space that I had been so steadfastly opposed to. I began to read other blogs, and write for ours, and I realized it was actually pretty cool. As great as my job is, I found that I missed writing every day, and just like that, I had gone from a hater, to a skeptic, to an admirer, to a blogger.

Now that I’ve been blogging for a little more than four months, I decided to look back on my hater days from the other side. I know that the Internet poses a serious threat to traditional media. We have already seen numerous publications forced to shut down because they can’t afford the costs of printing and distribution anymore, and others holding on for dear life. If you ask a class of high school kids how many of them have ever read a newspaper, most of them would say, “you mean online?” So, then within the “evil Internet” are people who may never have had any formal journalism training, never worked at a newspaper or magazine, never even heard of the AP Stylebook (gasp!). And yet, they can write beatuiful, thought-provoking stories about the issues that matter most, and attract thousands of readers in the process.

Well, I can tell you one thing. Mainstream media is right to be afraid, because not only do bloggers provide competition for traditional journalists, they’re starting to win. Nisha Chittal wrote a great post that shows just how important, legitimate and relevant the online media has become. She talks about the execution of Delara Derabi, a 23-year-old young woman who was killed last Friday in Iran. According to Nisha’s research, it took the mainstream media until Saturday to start picking up the story. So, in that case, where did the story break? Not on a news site or a blog, but on Twitter, and the first media outlet to cover the story was BreakingTweets.com, a Twitter-based news site run by a journalism grad student.

With all of this in mind, I can totally understand the negative feelings that journalists have for bloggers. I’m not at all surprised that I somehow managed to soak up the same attitude as I learned the tricks of the trade. But as is often the case, I think ignorance is the root of the problem. As I was going merrily along in my anti-blogger bubble, I don’t know that I ever took the time to read a blog. If I did, it was probably by some well-known journalism-related blogger who just further proved my generalizations.

Today, I am proud to call myself a blogger. In fact, I’m almost like a walking Web 2.0 advertisement, constantly trying to open people’s eyes to this magical world. I know now that there is so much more to the blogosphere than meets the eye. Sure, there are some people who blog just to snub traditional media, watch them shake in their boots, but those people are only a fraction of the greater community. And, it is a community filled with some of the most intelligent, insightful, beautiful, wise, interesting, powerful and courageous content I have ever read. There are some people who will never understand what all the hype is about, and that’s okay. But, I am not one of those people. This blog is my creative outlet, my way to reach people, to make my voice heard. It means so much to me that I recently bought my own domain and decided to self-host. If that’s not commitment, I don’t know what is. It really is funny how much our opinions can change.

What did you think of bloggers before you became one yourself? I’d love to hear your stories!