Is Old Media Killing Itself by Blogging?

By | April 6, 2007
Interesting point implicit in Technorati’s new State of the Live Web: as newspaper and other mainstream media use blogs more, does the public’s distinction between traditional journalism and blogging blur further? And if that happens, isn’t it counterproductive for old media to adopt blogs, since it erodes their distinctiveness and competitive advantage? In other words, by using blogs to try to keep eyeballs, do they merely devalue their core product, namely news coverage with heavy investments and commitment in core journalistic values? As a newspaper wouldn’t it make more sense to stress their distinctiveness from bloggers — lots of trained journalists, lots of resources, lots of experience — rather than try the ‘me-too’ of blogdom? 
clipped from www.sifry.com

In Q4, however, there were 22 blogs on the list — further evidence of the continuing maturation of the Blogosphere. Blogs continue to become more and more viable news and information outlets. For instance, information not shown in our data but revealed in our own user testing in Q1 2007 indicates that the audience is less and less likely to distinguish a blog from, say, nytimes.com — for a growing base of users, these are all sites for news, information, entertainment, gossip, etc. and not a “blog” or a “MSM site”.

One thought on “Is Old Media Killing Itself by Blogging?

  1. Juha

    I would agree with that – why not use your strong point, namely the editorial system, which blogging doesn’t have?

    Blogging is no substitute for “old media” columns and articles but I think what the editors are after is the direct link to readers and discussion. Not convinced that blog-style comments will work for news sites for instance (must stop calling them newspapers actually).

    Reply

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