The current state of journalism and its Web 2.0 future

Jump to Comments

Madison resident and Capital Times editor John Nichols joined communication scholar Robert W. McChesney to discuss the current state of print and online journalism, with ideas to save the dying industry. Of note to my readers:

The Internet and blogosphere, too, depend in large part on “old media” to do original journalism. Web links still refer readers mostly to stories that first appeared in print. Even in more optimistic scenarios, no one has a business model to sustain digital journalism beyond a small number of self-supporting services. The attempts of newspapers to shift their operations online have been commercial failures, as they trade old media dollars for new media pennies. We are enthusiastic about Wikipedia and the potential for collaborative efforts on the web; they can help democratize our media and politics. But they do not replace skilled journalists on the ground covering the events of the day and doing investigative reporting. Indeed, the Internet cannot achieve its revolutionary potential as a citizens’ forum without such journalism.

So this is where we stand: much of local and state government, whole federal departments and agencies, American activities around the world, the world itself–vast areas of great public concern–are either neglected or on the verge of neglect. Politicians and administrators will work increasingly without independent scrutiny and without public accountability. We are entering historically uncharted territory in America, a country that from its founding has valued the press not merely as a watchdog but as the essential nurturer of an informed citizenry. The collapse of journalism and the democratic infrastructure it sustains is not a development that anyone, except perhaps corrupt politicians and the interests they serve, looks forward to. Such a crisis demands solutions equal to the task. So what are they?

A dearth of traditional media reporting on local and state government will come as no surprise to readers of the Madison blogosphere. The same readers might also notice trends in blogging as picked up by some during the past year:

2. It’s all about niche blogs. If you have a particular expertise and unique perspective, they you can quickly gain a following. Everyone else is out of luck.

4. Blogger Burn Out. Many of the top bloggers have been absorbed into some other professional enterprise or are burnt. It’s a lot of work to blog. Most bloggers, and not just the A-listers, spend 3-5 hours every day blogging. That’s hard to maintain, especially since there is no money in this. They used that time to not only write their posts and monitor their comment sections, but to read and foster other bloggers. Blogging survived based on the goodwill and generosity of others. It’s probably no coincidence that every blogger that I’ve met face-to-face is an extraordinarily nice person. But it’s hard to volunteer that much time over a long period of time.

5. Reader burn out. You all are not clicking on the links like you used to. I’m not really sure why. In the past, if I was linked to by a big mega blogger, it meant 10,000 new readers in one afternoon. Now, a link by a mega blogger sends over a couple hundred readers. Readers are probably tired out of trying new stuff. Maybe we’ve sent you to too many crappy places over time and you’re sick of it.

2, 4, and 5 on this list are of note to me. These concerns directly relate to the academic research done on web 2.0 communication:

Drezner and Farrell had a theory that even small potato bloggers would have their day in the sun, if they wrote something so great that it garnered the attention of the big guys. But the big guys are too burnt out to find the hidden gems. So, good stuff is being written all the time, and it isn’t bubbling to the top.

So what’s next?

Niche blogging, in my opinion, is the future of local and national blog websites. A particular set of interests and skill sets will translate into interesting content – of course, under-covered in traditional media outlets already reeling from staff cutbacks – and hypothetically, a reader base welcoming to unique commentary.

Still, niche blogging has its drawbacks:

Laura is definitely onto something — professionalization, partisanship and speciaization have hit the blogosphere pretty hard.  The linksearch problem might be abetting this — like Laura, I have more difficulty now tracing who’s linked to my posts than I did a few years ago.

That said, I will defend the “focal point” argument Henry and I made oh so many moons ago.  When the unexpected happens in the world, I do think new blogs and new bloggers can emerge rapidly.  Think of Simon Johnson’s Calculated Risk Baseline Scenario blog in response to the global financial crisis, or Tehran Bureau in response to the Iran election imbroglio.

The difference might be that new bloggers are not exactly neophytes on their subject matter.  Johnson was the IMF’s chief economist, for example.  My fellow bloggers here at Foreign Policy are not exactly novices in the subject matter.  So it might be more accurate to say that the days when someone like Matt Yglesias or Kevin Drum could be vaulted into the top tier of bloggers has come to an end.

Who knows what the next technology will be that takes the online community by storm. Maybe a web 3.0?

Just in case you missed it, the web now has version numbers. Nearly three years ago, amid continued hand-wringing over the dot-com crash, a man named Dale Dougherty dreamed up something called Web 2.0, and the idea soon took on a life of its own. In the beginning, it was little more than a rallying cry, a belief that the Internet would rise again. But as Dougherty’s Silicon Valley start-ups—and blogs are already abuzz with talk of the Web’s next generation.

To many, Web 3.0 is something called the Semantic Web, a term coined by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the (first) World Wide Web. In essence, the Semantic Web is a place where machines can read Web pages much as we humans read them, a place where search engines and software agents can better troll the Net and find what we’re looking for. “It’s a set of standards that turns the Web into one big database,” says Nova Spivack, CEO of Radar Networks, one of the leading voices of this new-age Internet.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds in store.

The Critical Badger is on hiatus. Any comments and questions can be sent to criticalbadger@gmail.com. I will be helping the gang over at University and State reform their website and perhaps from time to time add my own commentary on a different set of subjects. I predict mostly higher education and legal topics. I ask that my ebb into private life be respected as I have equally shown for so many over the years. Thank you all for making this online community something special.

14 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized