Blogs Make the Headlines
from the early-warning-journalism dept
Earlier today someone sent me the Google News link for all the news stories showing up suggesting that the whole Trent Lott ordeal was made into a big story thanks to bloggers. Wired News is now running a story talking about how bloggers are starting to influence headlines and turn small news stories into big ones. The article also includes the obligatory moronic quote from a journalism professor who trashes blogs as being all about “navel gazing” that have nothing to do with real journalism. While I won’t deny that most blogs aren’t particularly interesting or useful, I do wonder how one becomes a journalism professor while being able to so clearly miss the “story”. Sure, most blogs are useless. However, that doesn’t change the fact that, together, they produce something interesting and useful. It also doesn’t change the fact that some bloggers do actually influence and change reporting on stories. Vast generalizations about “all” of anything doesn’t seem like very good journalism. I agree that the meme of “blogs as the new journalists” is completely overblown. However, that doesn’t mean that the voice of bloggers doesn’t impact journalism. It makes journalism much more participatory – and that (apparently) is scary to many journalists. The problem is, as much as they deny their existence, the bloggers aren’t likely to go away.
