Taylor Owen and I published this piece in the Toronto Star on the 10th anniversary of blogging and its impact on news media. (PDF version here)
Blogosphere at age 10 is improving journalism
Jul 30, 2007 04:30 AM
David Eaves & Taylor Owen
Although hard to believe, this month marks the 10th anniversary of blogging, a method for regularly publishing content online.
And what a milestone it is. A recent census of “the blogosphere” counted more than 70 million blogs covering an unimaginable array of topics.
Moreover, every day an astounding 120,000 new blogs are created and 1.5 million new posts are published (about 17 posts per second). Never before have so many contributed so much to our media landscape.
Despite this exponential growth, blogging continues to be misunderstood by both technophiles and technophobes. For the past decade the former have maintained that blogs will replace traditional journalism, ushering in an era of citizen-run media. Conversely, the latter have argued that a wave of amateurs threatens the quality and integrity of journalism – and possibly even democracy.
Both are wrong.
Blogging is not a substitute for journalism. If anything, this past decade shows that blogging and journalism are symbiotic – to the benefit of everyone.
To its many ardent advocates, blogging is displacing traditional journalism. But journalism – unlike blogging – is a practice with a particular set of norms and structures that guide the creation of content. Blogging, despite its unique properties (virtually anyone can reach a potentially enormous audience at little cost), has few, if any norms.
Consider another, more established medium. Books enable various practices, such as fiction, poetry, science and sometimes journalism, to be disseminated. Do books pose a threat to journalism? Of course not. They do the opposite. Journalistic books, like blogs, increase interest in the subjects they tackle and so promote further media consumption.
The same market forces that apply to books and newspapers apply to blogs.
Readers will judge and elect to read based on the same standard: Does it inform, is it well researched and does it add value?
Because blogs are cheaper to maintain they will always be numerous, but this makes them neither unique nor more likely to be read regularly.
Ultimately blogs, like books, don’t replace journalism; they simply provide another medium for its dissemination and consumption.
If technophiles mistakenly claim that blogging competes with – and will ultimately replace – traditional journalism, then technophobes’ fear of being swept away by a tsunami of irrelevant and amateurish blogs is equally misplaced.
Traditionalists’ concern with blogging is rooted in the fact that the average blog is of questionable quality. Ask anyone who has looked, and cringed, at a friend’s blog.
But this conclusion is based on a flawed understanding of how people use the Internet. The Internet’s most powerful property is its capacity to connect users quickly to exactly what they are looking for, including high-quality writing on any subject.
This accounts for the tremendous amount of traffic high-quality blogs receive and explains why these bloggers are print journalists’ true competition. As technology expert Paul Graham argues: “Those in the print media who dismiss online writing because of its low average quality miss the point. No one reads the average blog.”
Once this capability of the Internet is taken into account, the significance of blogging shifts. Imagine that only 5 per cent – or 75,000 – of daily posts are journalistic in content, and that only 1 per cent of these are of high quality. That still leaves 750 high-quality posts published every day.
Even by this conservative assessment, the blogo- sphere still yields a quantity of content that can challenge the world’s best newspapers.
In addition, as a wider range of writers and citizens try blogging, the diversity and quantity of high-quality blogs will continue to increase. Currently, the number of blogs doubles every 300 days. Consequently, the situation is going to get much worse, or depending on your perspective, much better.
As bloggers continue to gain tangible influence in public debates, our understanding of this phenomenon will mature.
And this past decade should serve as a good guide. Contrary to the predictions of both champions and skeptics, blogging has neither displaced nor debased the practice of journalism. If anything, it has made journalism more accurate, democratic and widely read.
Let’s hope blogging’s next decade will be as positive and transformative as the first.
eaves.ca 
Good article. I gave both you and Taylor some props for it at my blog yesterday.
Good article. I gave both you and Taylor some props for it at my blog yesterday.
Interesting article. I agree that blogging isn’t a replacement for journalism. Most bloggers don’t have access to the resources or the training that journalists do. Rather in ideal scenarios media — books, newspapers, blogs, television — can be synergistic, allowing for a meaningful discussion on issues that are of importance to the participants.
I’m not so sure about your contention that the Internet can quickly connect users to exactly what they’re looking for, including high quality content. While search engine technology has evolved it still has a long way to go before it can quickly connect users to the content they are looking for.
The convergence of search and content analytics will hopefully bring us a step closer. But while analytic technologies like clustering helps provide some insight it doesn’t validate the credentials of the author in question. Again clustering can help but knowing who is who is going to become increasngly important as the number of contributors increases (not to mention the possibilty of some individuals assuming the identity of someone who has gained a reputation).
I’d also disagree with Paul Graham’s assertion that no one reads an average blog. I’ve noticed alot of really mediocre blogs that generate alot of traffic. I believe that part of it is attributable to first mover status. Those who staked out positions early seem to have gained some mindshare — hopefully that will change over time.
The other challenge as I see it is in effectively aggregating different media and then creating a dialogue around the issue or topic in question.
One other point. I think you’re contradicting yourself at the end of the piece. At the beginning of the piece you state that blogging is not a subsitute for journalism, that they are in fact complimentary. Yet towards the end of the piece you state that high quality blogs are print journalists’ true competition. This makes it seem like the zero sum game that your article seems to generally be arguing against. Which is it?
Interesting article. I agree that blogging isn’t a replacement for journalism. Most bloggers don’t have access to the resources or the training that journalists do. Rather in ideal scenarios media — books, newspapers, blogs, television — can be synergistic, allowing for a meaningful discussion on issues that are of importance to the participants. I’m not so sure about your contention that the Internet can quickly connect users to exactly what they’re looking for, including high quality content. While search engine technology has evolved it still has a long way to go before it can quickly connect users to the content they are looking for. The convergence of search and content analytics will hopefully bring us a step closer. But while analytic technologies like clustering helps provide some insight it doesn’t validate the credentials of the author in question. Again clustering can help but knowing who is who is going to become increasngly important as the number of contributors increases (not to mention the possibilty of some individuals assuming the identity of someone who has gained a reputation). I’d also disagree with Paul Graham’s assertion that no one reads an average blog. I’ve noticed alot of really mediocre blogs that generate alot of traffic. I believe that part of it is attributable to first mover status. Those who staked out positions early seem to have gained some mindshare — hopefully that will change over time. The other challenge as I see it is in effectively aggregating different media and then creating a dialogue around the issue or topic in question. One other point. I think you’re contradicting yourself at the end of the piece. At the beginning of the piece you state that blogging is not a subsitute for journalism, that they are in fact complimentary. Yet towards the end of the piece you state that high quality blogs are print journalists’ true competition. This makes it seem like the zero sum game that your article seems to generally be arguing against. Which is it?
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Thanks,very useful and interesting post
Thanks,very interesting and useful post
Very interesting post dude.. definitely journalism are blogging are interrelated but journalism has an edge over blogging.. thanks for sharing this.. indeed an awesome post…
Good article. I do not agree in all points with you. In my opinion is blogging today also a kind of journalism. The first places where people can read the newest informations about something which is interesting for a hugh couple of people are the blogs. It is very impressive how fast the blogging-system has changed the internet. I am very interested what will happen next.
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