Another helpful and necessary argument from David Weinberger. Weblogs are not about replacing journalists/media. They are maybe not even about challenging them or improving their professional conduct. The article David quotes is on blog-celebrities, their daily live, and sources of income all presented like an ethnographic study. Good stuff to read but as David is underlining: the power of weblogs is not at this fraction it’s where the readership is low and the fascination is high.
Of course it seems more attractive to media to go and research where they recognize (and project) themselves as free and passionate writers that have even a bigger audience than some massmedia outlets. It’s like the dream that they dreamed before entering the business. Some journalists may even envy the bohemian blogger others may long for the moments in their professional lives that will bring them back the ethusiasm of the ‘good old days’ before they turned their fascination into business.
The NY Times Magazine article on blogs makes the same old error. Viewing blogs through the media lens, only the left-hand of the side of the power curve is visible. As Matthew Klam, the article’s author says:
In a recent national survey, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that more than two million Americans have their own blog. Most of them, nobody reads
Thus, the tail of the power curve — which is probably at least 5 million blogs long — gets erased. In fact, the tail is where blog are having their most important effects. That’s where self and community, public and private, owned and shared are re-drawing their boundaries.
Further, Klam thinks that our flocking to blogs indicates a lack of interest in balanced news. First, I think it more likely that is shows our disdain for the bloodlessness and baked-in bias of the mainstream media. Second, you could only conclude that if you knew that people who read The Daily Kos don’t also read other sources. Kos’ readership may have gone up sharply, but it’s unlikely that that’s the only source people are reading. It’s not like picking your daily newspaper.
His concludes by drawing the only conclusion visible through the lens of the media: Bloggers are becoming just like them. [Joho the Blog]
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