The artificial blogger / journalist divide - over a third have worked in traditional media

Technorati has started publishing its annual State of the Blogosphere report (it drip feeds the stats out over several days). The first set of results, 'who are the bloggers' contains a lot of what you'd expect:

Two-thirds are men (67%), 3/4 college or Uni graduates, and half (48%) are in the US with another quarter (26%) being in the European Union.

This stat however is interesting: The high proportion of bloggers who have also worked in some shape or form for traditional media outlets. Over a third (35%), "have worked within the traditional media as a writer, reporter, producer or on-air personality."

Of those, a quarter (27%) still work in the traditional media (at least part time).

This again shows that the blogger / journalist divide is in some senses artificial. Many newspapers now maintain 'official' blogs for their journalists. Meanwhile other writers use their blogs on an unofficial basis for material that they've been unable to use in the main publication, or to comment on projects they've been working on.

In any case it gives another answer to the question of 'why target bloggers' or why have a blogger outreach programme?

Because as Technorati shows, quite a sizable proportion - around one in ten (27% of the 35%) - are current journalists and can broadcast their thoughts about you via traditional as well as non traditional media. Meanwhile the other quarter have worked in the media in the past and may well do so again.