« Capitol Hill's Coming Video Revolution | Main | John Edwards And Me »

Newspaper Bumbling In The Blogosphere

I've watched with a mixture of satisfaction, great expectations and occasional bemusement as the mainstream media have made inevitable albeit cautious and reluctant moves into the blogosphere the past couple of years. Today definitely falls into the "bemusement" category.

The reason: I just read this piece in the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where the county columnist of the past five-plus years announced that he has been made the paper's new "blogs editor."

I'm glad to see another newspaper finally acknowledging that new media is the future of journalism, and it's especially heartening to see the Sun-Sentinel taking that future seriously enough to hire a full-time editor to the post.

But come on, the grey-haired county columnist who may never have read a blog other than the few produced by his own newspaper? A guy who felt compelled to explain to his readers what a blog is -- and came up with this definition: "That's short for 'Weblogs,' personal essays and political broadsides that proliferate all over the Net."? Who put "blogosphere" in quotes, like it's still in the new word category and not on equal footing with, say, "newspaper"?

I don't know Howard Goodman. I trust that he's a good journalist and deserving of professional advancement at the Sun-Sentinel. But I don't understand what MSM outlets like his hope to accomplish in the blogosphere by putting people who seem to know little to nothing about new media in charge of new media.

If newspapers are going to have blogs editors, they need to know the blogosphere. They need to read blogs, and they need to be bloggers. Otherwise, the papers will just be recreating their tiresome, dying publishing businesses in a new format -- and their decline will continue.

I wish Mr. Goodman and the Sun-Sentinel the best of luck in the blogosphere. I hope they get it right. But if they want to succeed, the first thing Mr. Goodman needs to do is hire a good assistant editor who actually knows something substantive about blogs.

UPDATE: The Star-Tribune in Minneapolis also has made a bone-headed new media move in canning the column written by popular columnist/blogger James Lileks and making him a reporter.

What is it about most newspapermen these days that makes them so backward in their thinking about the online world? Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail, whom I met while working as an intern at that West Virginia paper in the summer of 1989, aptly calls it "hot-type thinking in a digital world." Sadly, it seems to be a brain disorder without any known cure.

(Hat tip to Instapundit)

Posted by Danny | 11:49 AM

Comments

Bankruptcy, Danny. Bankruptcy is the cure.

Dick Eagleson | 05.07.07 02:08 PM

Post a Comment