Should blogs do journalism?

It is a great question, are bloggers mature enough to do real journalism AKA the NY Times, or the Washington Post. Scott Karp from Publishing 2.0 asks the question, “Can Blogs do Journalism” which they can as a technical platform. The real question is that with the way that bloggers interact with each other, the real question is “should blogs do journalism” or should we keep our own distinct style, voice, and propensity to be wrong, self righteous, or funny and charming.

Since many news organizations are too busy focusing on the us vs. them polemic with blogs, it makes sense that someone like Nick Denton would have to step into the vacuum — which traditional news organizations so often create in failing to boldly experiment with new forms, because they appear to threaten the old. Source: Publishing 2.0

It is an interesting question, while there are places for ordinary news sources, it is not in print, it is on line in news aggregation sources like Yahoo and Google news. That is where the customers are, that is where they need to write to their readers. There are not many traditional news outlets that feed decent data, that feed a world wide smorgasbord of information that people can follow. There are maybe 400 decent outlets world wide for news.

In relationship there are somewhere on the order of 75 million blogs, in a widely scattered cross talk of opinion, conjecture, news, views, and niches that make it barely. These are not news sources; these are one gigantic op ed piece on everything and nothing. It is like being caught in a never-ending episode of Seinfeld or worst, voyeuristically reading the personal diaries of people worldwide.

This is not a news source, even group blogs are not news sources, it is more about the experience of sharing where we are, and who we are. This does not make news, this is not news, it can never be news.

Some blogs can consolidate into a valid news source, but only after they have “made it” by getting an audience, and there is no guarantee that the audience will follow the new direction of the blog. So not so much Can Blogs do Journalism, but Should Blogs do Journalism. For some blogs, the answer is yes, they have the audience, and the money to make it happen, for others, no, they have nothing.

Like all endeavors, some will, some will not but the participatory voyeurism of blogging is what makes it interesting. Unless you are tracking celebrity meltdowns, there is little voyeurism in journalism.