Blogging: Welcome to Your Doom, Print Media

Jay Makki
DTC 375
Word Count: 1,080

Just a little taste is all it took. Like a dealer pushing his wares in a questionable neighborhood, blogs began to pop up in the shadowy depths of the internet, offering quips, quotes and cute little anecdotes from the everyman sitting at his computer. After a collective revelation resonated throughout the culture we found out the truth; that the everyman was us. With the advent of the internet the power of information was put back into our hands. A few short years later and America is now watching the phenomenon of blogging permanently changing the core of written word media.

It wasn’t long before blogging started conquering a heavy portion of the world’s information scheme. Media analysts, political pundits from all parties, respected financial advisors and mainstream journalists all have one major similarity in the last few years; the expansion of their online presence. As society was exponentially expanding onto the web it was no longer pragmatic for old media to skate by with only a mere website online. Internet users were on the move and content needed to follow in suit. If someone could not provide content to the users there was a safe bet that someone else could.

Some older media personalities anticipated the coming shift in media and met it head on. Former Richard Nixon ghostwriter Hugh Hewitt sensed the power of the blog movement and helped lead the way. His thinking was with the instant gratification given from blogging the “American attention span—which was never long to begin with—is getting shorter and shorter.” (Hewitt, 2005)

What were the older media empires to do? In order to meet the demands of the ever morphing user base, the older, more rigid models of media made the leap into blogging. NBC couldn’t wait for the evening broadcast when someone else was leaping on the story at noon. Bloggers, armed with a network of peers and websites they could update in second were delivering content to users armed with smart phones and notebooks. With each new blog and RSS subscription being offered on the web, it’s clear that content is becoming fluid.

Do you wish to wish to hear the latest inside celebrity gossip floating around Hollywood? 10 years ago Americans had to wait for the next broadcast of Inside Edition or next issue of Entertainment Weekly to hit newsstands. These days names such as Perez Hilton and Nikki Finke are becoming synonymous with ‘juicy celebrity gossip’. The reasons behind this are simple. First and foremost, people appreciate the authors and have built a cyber community around them, building faith on their credibility. Secondly, since these blogs are normally ran without any permission slips, they are allowed to speak what they feel with little hesitance because of editors and advertisers. Finally, these blogs have the content when you want it, as it happens. Gone are the days of media informing us of what has ‘happened’ as we usher in the days of media informing us as to what is currently ‘happening’ around the world.

Because of the speed, availability and to some degree the expectation of quality in blogging, the effects are cascading down upon printed word media. “Magazines, as we know them, are dying,” said journalist David Lipke. (Lipke, 2006) As technology progresses, it is only getting worse. The Seattle Post Intelligencer, on March 18th of ‘09, ceased production on printed newspapers. The Baltimore Examiner went under on February 15th of ’09 and The Rocky Mountain News also went under after closing their doors on February 27th of ’09. A New York Times Sunday newspaper now costs more then one share of their stock. Magazines such as Electronics Gaming Monthly, a staple among the gaming community for 20 years, shut down the printed edition of the publication in April of ’09. This is not a phase or a trend but a shift in where media is heading in the near future.

While it might be disheartening to consider that some beloved newspapers and magazines are shutting their doors, there is a glimmer of hope. Some publications—almost prophetically—are rising from the ashes of their former businesses to make new media geared towards the modern users. The aforementioned Seattle Post Intelligencer, Rocky Mountain News and Electronic Gaming Monthly have now shifted their entire focus online. The job of the journalist remains the same; observe and report. The only difference is how the product is reaching the readership.

This is not to say the interactions between digital media versus traditional print or broadcast media are note entirely sour, nor does this mean the end of printed media. In fact, none of these points are attempting to insinuate these two models are at war with one another. Media, as a whole, is simply having to learn to work together in order to provide their services to a broader core user base. Continually they are remediating content from one other. One man’s words become another man’s speech which becomes another man’s blog entry. This is the true power of the blogging scene as a whole.

What does this mean for the future? With many publications simply being unable to make ends meet in the physical portion of their work, they may be able to find empowerment by shifting to an all digital presence on the net. Perhaps without having to worry about the restraints of the physical product they can instead invest more into the quality of their work. Further, the lack of a hassle concerning the delivery of their publication may lift an unseen burden, making the reader themselves the delivering agent. No longer will an author have to ‘send the product out’, but now the reader ‘sends themselves to the URL’.

As the shift in media still spirals into new directions, speculation comes up about the future of written word. With the advent of Amazon’s Kindle 2 being recently released and several newspapers testing the internet based subscription waters, it may be too early to give any projections about the coming changes in media. There is only one certainty that anyone can be sure of; blogging has made its mark on media. No matter which way the media inevitably changes, you can be certain it will be blogged about the entire time it is happening.

Hewitt, Hugh (2005) “BLOG: Understanding the Information Reformation” Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Lipke, David. (2006, October 2) Whither Magazines? E-Paper May Imperil the Printed Page. Daily News Recor. Vol. 36 Issue 40, p14-15