Boycott Wired or Chris Anderson is a foof

You're right. The blog usually copies it from a newspaper's web site.

 

Booo!

Seriously, if anyone thinks FreeDarko, for example, is just ripping off newspapers, that person has no idea what he or she is talking about. Of course there are plenty of blogs that act as aggregators (a very useful service, by the way, and one that newspaper sites should have been able to provide years ago).

But there are also plenty of blogs that exist completely apart from newspapers and the news media. This doesn't always make them good, of course -- very often, they're quite bad -- but to say BLLLOOOOOGGGGSSS!! just cut and paste from newspapers is as foolish as saying they're all written by people living in basements.

 

Free costs $26.99.

 

"Look at me! Twitter! TWITTER! E-mail! RSS! I AM SO WEB 3.0!"

 

But it's all just a CB radio craze (attempting to gather news as a hobby, that is) unless they can monetize it. For every TMZ, there's hundreds of failed wannabes. Cos very few people are enough of attention whores to stick with something that almost surely contains a lot of "who are you and why should I tell you anything?"

 

Dooley,

I don't see why that's relevant in the context of what we're talking about. Yes, if you measure blogs by the standards of newspapers, relatively few measure up. But that's because you're mostly comparing apples and oranges.

"Gathering" news isn't what most blogs are about. That's not new. The idea so many folks around here have, of the blogger who just links and summarizes newspaper accounts, is woefully ill-informed.

 

The comments on the Salon piece are outstanding. They're absolutely letting Anderson have it. Best suggestion: Since Anderson's job as "editor" is one he feels can be done part-time, perhaps he'd be willing to take a part-time wage to set a good example of how it's supposed to be done.

 

It's perfectly relevant. You just said that many blogs gather news. Are you not saying that now? I was pointing out that's not really in the cards for the vast majority that would aspire to that. Bloggers are great as columnists, but by and large. But what they largely comment on comes from mainstream media. Newspapers going away should not be what blogs want

 

Took the words out of my mouth, Dooley. If blogs aren't about gathering news, but rather commenting on it, that news still has to come from somewhere. Maybe, if newspapers die off en masse over the next decade, enough unemployed reporters will jump on the blog bandwagon to make them reliable sources of information. Right now, that's not the case.

 

Dooley,

I've quoted my original post below. If you can point out where I said blogs gather news, I'll buy you a steak dinner. (Of course, many do, but that's not the point I'm making here. Your point that gathering news is harder than it looks, and making money at it is harder still, applies to newspapers as much as blogs, by the way.)

Since there's apparently some confusion, I'll expand on what I actually said: Many blogs DON'T rip off newspapers. I'll continue to use FreeDarko as an example. It's not one of my favorites -- I generally find it overwritten and pompous -- but it's certainly not a parrot or a parasite of newspapers.

It produces original work, in much the same way as such bloggy endeavors as HuffPo or Kissing Suzy Kolber, almost entirely devoid of actual reporting. That doesn't devalue what they produce, which is an entertaining product aimed at a particular audience.

The original post by leo to which I responded indicated that blogs just copy from newspapers; blogs, as a whole, manifestly do not. All blogs aren't leeches, any more than all newspapers are shining examples of journalism.

 

Yeah, interesting commentary, based on mainstream media reports. And yes, the vast majority of blogs that deal with current events do get their fodder from mainstream media. I wish there was a way to make blogs prove they could be going concerns without leeching off the mainstream media, but the Internet allows for one to look smart without actually having to sweat much.

 

Dooley, I love ya. But I'm concerned you may not have any idea what you're talking about. Again, just to make it simple on both of us, let's stick to freedarko.

http://freedarko.blogspot.com/

Just click the link, read an entry or two (if you have some time carved out...they tend to be rather long) and tell me again how they're "based on mainstream media reports."