Blogging and mainstream media

Blogging is hot news in the mainstream media. Newspapers are in a "dammed if you do and damned if you don’t" situation. Upstart citizen journalists can cut into newspaper profit margins, but if newspapers wish to reach the Web 2.0 generation their journalists need to have their own blogs, and many do.

The Australian boasts about 18 blogs and individual blogger popularity can be seen by how many comments each blog has attracted.

Steve Almond, writing in the Oct/Nov07 Walkley Magazine has an article Attack of the Instapundits “Blogs are cheap and easy. They’re like those cable TV shows with all the talking heads shouting at one another. All you need is the means to broadcast and an opinionator”.

More on blogging: on November 8th ABC Radio National Media Report has a special panel discussion on the power of blogging. Among the speakers will be Hugh Martin from APN online Australia, and Pippa Leary, General Manager of Media at Fairfax Digital. You can download the audio, or read the transcript the next day.

In many ways the threats faced by mainstream media are similar to libraries. We need to also embrace the technologies of the digital generation, or risk becoming irrelevant.