Self-important or self-reliant?

This AM, I noticed Glenn Reynolds point out that E&P is referring to bloggers as "self-important."

I suppose you'd get that impression if all you ever read were those blogs where teenagers complain about how bored they are, or those that give exhaustive accounts of shopping trips like anybody else would really be interested.

I'm surprised that E&P hasn't progressed any in its thinking since last spring/summer. Back then, there was a lot of rhetoric from traditional journalist types that was essentially anti-blog. Most of that was due to the simple fact these people hadn't yet informed themselves as to the actual nature and potential of blogs/RSS -- or maybe they had. In some of these "blogs are just a fad that will go away soon" pieces I detect a certain element of disquiet sprinkled in the disdain there. Perhaps some are concerned they may not have a job anymore, if they encourage these opinionated upstarts.

Whatever the opinion of any given traditional journalist or publication, the reality is that newspapers have already begun to change they way they do journalism on the Web, and everywhere else. They are wide open to public scrutiny in unprecedented ways, and also have a real need to address their reader's wants and preferences more than ever before. With a public that now has access, in some cases, to many of the same sources of news and now the ability to publish to a wide audience, I can see why many traditionalists would hope we (the bloggers) go away soon.

After all, many bloggers now have a readership equal to or exceeding that of a small-town newspaper. What's different here is that the blog's readership is scattered all over the world. While the Yuma Daily Sun informs their local hard-copy circulation of roughly 25,000 of general events, I'm informing about the same number of people globally on highly-focused subject matter, with my four blogs. We're not actually in competition, because our readership/frequency isn't the same.

What we're getting into these days is not a question of whether newspapers will change the way they do journalism as much as a question of defining the nature of journalism. Is it about original content vs content form outside sources? Is it about frequency? Is it about accessibility? Is it about the credentials of the person or people that provide news? Or is it all about intention?

The thing that's seldom openly discussed is the question of whether the public wants or needs what is commonly referred to as "The Media" anymore. There is a lot of misunderstanding on both sides of the TV/computer screen, as to what the function of "The Media" really is, and how it works. There is equal misunderstanding in the same quarters as to the function of blogs and the fourth medium of the Internet.

How it all ultimately works -- together, separately, or in opposition, with blogs on one "side" and "The Media" on the other, is anybody's guess. There are far too many questions that still need to be asked.

Comments

[Sean]

It's probably hard to classify bloggers as a single group. There's got to be so many different types of posters including those wanting: to tell a story, a public diary, to rant, to reach out to people, to share information with their circle of friends, to aggregate knowledge, to spread news from a unique perspective, and on and on.

I imagine that some people will blog regardless of their traffic because it's carthetic for them while others will go through a natural selection type competition for mindshare. Of course, there are so many niche and specific interests, there's the ability to support a huge number of active blogs with large readerships.