Posted by Randy Barnett:
The Symbiosis Between the MSN and Bloggers:
A really nice column on the how the MSM needs bloggers and vice versa
by Phil Boas, the deputy editorial page editor for The Arizona
Republic: [1]Bloggers: The light at the end of the newspaper's tunnel.
Here is how it begins:
Engaged bloggers are voracious newspaper readers, too.
It's customary for anyone writing to the uninitiated about blogs to
define them. This is a journalism trade publication and you are no
ordinary reader, so I'll spare you the customary definition.
Instead, I'll define blogs as they relate to you.
They are your Nemesis in the making.
If you've remained nonplussed as they took down Dan Rather and four
of his Black Rock colleagues, if you haven't the slightest interest
in acquainting yourself with the blogosphere, don't move an inch.
You won't have to. Bloggers will be knocking on your door any day
now. Or knocking it down.
To many of you, bloggers are a presumptuous rabble--amateurs
elbowing their way into the publishing world. You may not know
them, but they know youyour face, your manners, your prejudices,
your conceits.
They're your readers. And, God help us, they've become the one
thing we've always begged them to become . . .
Engaged.
Here is how it ends:
If you listen closely, tuning in to the conversation beyond the
oft-expressed contempt for mainstream media, you'll find the
blogosphere actually needs mainstream media. We provide most of the
coverage that starts the conversation. And by carrying the
conversation further than we do, the blogosphere makes mass media
vital.
The bloggers are demanding better standards and less bias--not
unreasonable demands given journalism's current track record. But
they're also creating stimulating and often irresistible discussion
around the news we produce.
Journalism tomorrow, thanks to forces like the blogosphere, will
grow more competitive. The best journalists will flourish. The
mediocre will be exposed and washed out.
Everything in the middle is worth reading too, such as this:
We are headed to the Web in a big way, and our readers--especially
our most engaged readers, the bloggers--are going with us. They are
giving us a taste now of what our new environment will be like.
They will challenge and cajole us to confront our biases and our
mistakes. And if we don't confront them, they'll clean our clocks.
They'll be our competitors and our colleagues and they'll force us
to dig deeper into issues, think harder about them. They'll show us
how to coalesce expertise on a breaking story and drill deeper for
the more complete truth.
Whenever I blog about blogging, I often get an email insisting that
bloggers need the MSM and are no replacement for it. I agree with this
and this column, written to legacy journalists by a journalist,
describes the symbiotic relationship between the MSM and blogging as
succinctly as I have seen. (Hat tip [2]Little Green Footballs and a
commentator on [3]Roger L. Simon who led me to LGF)
References
1. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3771/is_200504/ai_n13498906
2.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15549_Bloggers-_The_Light_at_the_End_of_the_Media_Tunnel#comments
3. http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2005/04/pinocchios_of_t.php#c46058
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