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William Safire discusses the effect of blogging and other recent developments on mainstream media:
Hear the wailing: The bloggers are coming! The Bible-thumpers are cursing our secular inhumanism! The plumber judges are plugging our leaks! The Yahoo president ducks our questions and giggles at our gaffes! News is slyly slanted as bias rears its head!
1. On the challenge from bloggers: The “platform” – print, TV, Internet, telepathy, whatever – will change, but the public hunger for reliable information will grow. Blogs will compete with op-ed columns for “views you can use,” and the best will morph out of the pajama game to deliver serious analysis and fresh information, someday prospering with ads and subscriptions. The prospect of profit will bring bloggers in from the meanstream to the mainstream center of comment and local news coverage.
On national or global events, however, the news consumer needs trained reporters on the scene to transmit facts and trustworthy editors to judge significance. In crises, large media gathering-places are needed to respond to a need for national community.
Certainly mainstream media will continue. Those massive reporting operations are necessary, and they provide the raw input that bloggers thrive on. The blogosphere corrects it, and builds on it by providing additional reporting, additional analysis, and by directing readers to the most meaningful stories of the day.
