Blogging/Journalism yada yada
July 22nd, 2006 by HenApologies to Rich if this is just reiterating his thoughts (badly) - if you’ve only got the time to read one blog entry, go read his instead.
Rich Bowen has a good blog entry commenting on yet another blog/journalism piece. I then read Daniel Pearl’s blog entry over at the BBC on the surprise people show that the BBC might be reading their blog. Sitting down and watching TV that night, the two blogs and that night’s TV sparked some thoughts.
Journalism has nothing to fear from blog entries (huge shock statement there eh?). No blog entry is going to replace impartial news coverage from professionals. I still read the BBC News right after I check my email in the morning. Watching TV though (in the US, but tabloid journalism in the UK is much the same as US TV News) - I’m struck that blogging replaces 90% of the crap they have on offer.
One of the things that lesser news seems to do is chase the human interest story. We’re not told about the latest news from the Israeli/Lebanese border - instead we’re taken to a village on that border to see how it has affected people’s daily lives. As the net slowly tightens on the world, someone in that village is likely to be blogging - with far more human interest than a 30 second TV snippet. Others will comment on it, adding more human interest; and the sheer amount of bloggers and areas of interest blows away the handful of minutes available on the television stations.
I wonder whether the advent of professional journalism on the net gave a slap to TV news ratings. Did they increase the human interest side of things then? Not a terrible idea - but I think that the advent of blogging has hit them from the other side and that TV journalism is the lost battle. Professional journalism will stay (though will we see bloggers interviewing each other someday? are we already - I’m hardly up to date on the blogging trends) - but the human interest crap is in its heydey.