Chekhov’s Mistess

More Blog Flogging - Who Knows What to Make of Us Parashitical Windbags?

The Economist Magazine on the decline of newspapers and the rise of blogs (Yesterday’s Papers 4/21/05*):

Many bloggers are windbags, but some are world experts in their field. Matthew Hindman, a political scientist at Arizona State University, found that the top bloggers are more likely than top newspaper columnists to have gone to a top university, and far more likely to have an advanced degree, such as a doctorate.


Another dangerous cliché is to consider bloggers intrinsically parasitic on (and thus, ultimately, no threat to) the traditional news business. True, many thrive on debunking, contradicting or analysing stories that originate in the old media. In this sense, the blogosphere is, so far, mostly an expanded op-ed medium. But there is nothing to suggest that bloggers cannot also do original reporting. Glenn Reynolds, whose political blog, Instapundit.com, counts 250,000 readers on a good day, often includes eyewitness accounts from people in Afghanistan or Shanghai, whom he considers “correspondents” in the original sense of the word.

All this speaks to the credibility of bloggers, which is a big open question on the minds of many, but I think ignores the fact, or I should say idea, that credibility in the blogging world is developed post by post. Perhaps it’s a question of youth…

Older people, whom Mr Murdoch calls “digital immigrants”, may not have noticed, but young “digital natives” increasingly get their news from web portals such as Yahoo! or Google, and from newer web media such as blogs. Short for “web logs”, these are online journal entries of thoughts and web links that anybody can post. Whereas 56% of Americans haven’t heard of blogs, and only 3% read them daily, among the young they are standard fare, with 44% of online Americans aged 18-29 reading them often, according to a poll by CNN/USA Today/Gallup.

but I think most people, not just youngsters, believe accounts of their friends, even if those opinions are formed in part by reading traditional media.

I spent over a decade working at Wall Street firms where we hung on the words of Alan Greenspan or a commerce department statistical release. Within seconds of becoming public, literally seconds, the interpretations of those words or numbers began. First from one of the firm’s economists whose job was to decipher the salient points and disseminate their meaning and put everything into context. Shortly afterwards, everyone else on the floor would start discussing the news, each with a different take.

It is always those interpretations of the news that make winners and losers (recalling the nature of finance that there’s always a seller for every buyer, each with the opposite opinion of the other, ostensibly based on the same information). This flow of information and opinion was always my favorite part of working in that world (stand up and ask into the air where you should go to dinner that night (or virtually any topic) and watch everyone draw their Zagat guides and shoot opinions like a gunfight at the OK coral).

While I’m telling stories, I saw Alan Greenspan speak at an event once, where he obliquely discussed his opinion of the economic scene. The next day, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported the event as if it were two separate happenings. That comes as no surprise to readers of book reviews of course, but there, opinion is fairly explicit.

My point of this nostalgic aside is that I think the media is missing the opinion factor in credibility. Every time I’ve ever been involved with reportage, the end result has always been distorted from my perspective. Nowadays, fabulists have infiltrated the ranks of journalism and our own leaders have shown themselves to be fabulists – we live in a world that is far from black and white (and read all over), we live in a world of gray area and it is up to the reader to question their sources of information.

I think the personal nature of blogs, the combination of informal dialogue and more formal reportage or essays (that are becoming more prevalent) are far more compelling than a static newspaper where the last word is theirs and theirs alone. I don’t read anything in the news without wondering about the perspective of the writer, even if it is supposedly straight reportage. I’ve written just enough economic commentary to know how easy it is to manipulate (even unintentionally) so-called facts based on your own pre-conceived notions of what the outcome should be or what you want your story to tell.

The Economist can’t seem to avoid speculating on the financial prospects of blogs either:

With so many new kinds of journalists joining the old kinds, it is also likely that new business models will arise to challenge existing ones. Some bloggers are allowing Google to place advertising links next to their postings, and thus get paid every time a reader of their blog clicks on them. Other bloggers, just like existing providers of specialist content, may ask for subscriptions to all, or part, of their content. Tip-jar systems, where readers click to make small payments to their favourite writers, are catching on. In one case last year, an OhmyNews article attacking an unpopular court verdict reaped $30,000 in tips from readers, though most of the site’s revenues come from advertising.

These are all interesting aspects of the phenomenon, but I fear that there’s an air of entrepreneurship surrounding all this, whereas traditional media is traditionally, for the most part, underpaid. One wonders what happens to accuracy and integrity of the individual when motivations turn to profit instead of having a voice. Granted, I was harsh on the Village Voice for the raising this issue, but the context of the Economist article is different. The Voice reporter, the aptly named Ms. Press, positioned the article as something about literature or publishing, while the Economist is clearly speaking about the business side of media.

They conclude:

What is clear is that the control of news—what constitutes it, how to prioritise it and what is fact—is shifting subtly from being the sole purview of the news provider to the audience itself. Newspapers, Mr Murdoch implies, must learn to understand their role as providers of news independent of the old medium of distribution, the paper.

See a related post at the Litblog Co-op: Why Litblogs Matter

*subscription may be required

Read widely, think well, and write often

comments

Great post, Bud.  This is indeed an interesting time in the world of media.  And, as I type this from inside a journalism school, I can tell you that people here know that something big is happening.  As professors - who are former or current newsmen/women - talk about steeply declining circulation, you can hear a note of desperation in their voices.  While I’ve been here, I’ve spent the same amount of time studying reporting as I have learning about the many reasons why people don’t read newspapers any more.

The Economist article is interesting, but blogging isn’t “the next big thing” and there isn’t going to be a blogging bubble like there was an Internet bubble.  Nor are blogs going to destroy or ruin “old media.” What will happen, I think, is that blogs will change newspapers.  Media companies will bend the code of the newsroom to allow for more opinion and more of a human voice in their stories.  Over time reading a newspaper will feel more like reading a blog, but not exactly the same.  And newspapers that don’t adapt will disappear.

    – Max (04/28  at  03:35 PM)

Page 1 of 1 pages of comments

Next entry: Last Chance to Subscribe to Poetry at 1/2 Price
Previous entry: E is for Exhausting

« Back to main

About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: April 28, 2005
• Filed Under:
  Litbloggers & Blog Floggers

• Comments:1
• Links to this Post: Technorati

Recommended Links

- top -