Is the finding of this study by Cornell University tracking the news cycle during the last US Presidential election. It shows, as Francis Anderson says, that "the old guard should chill out about blogs and how they are destroying the world."
It also chimes in with the recent PwC report saying that we should quit going on about the death of newspapers and instead talk about the rise of news brands - i.e. people will still want professionally sourced information from trusted sources.
Having said that a few other points emerge:
1 - It's worth noting that during the same news cycle - the Presidential election - Pew Research conducted a separate study that found that TV led as an essential source of news (72%), followed by online (33% - which is not the same as blogs), with printed newspapers in third place (29%).
2 - Fast Company, which reports on the Cornell University study, talks about the mass of amateur blogs which operate in a 'me too' mode skewing the results. Which of course begs the question, what's a 'blog' anyway as at the top end the lines between news brands and professional blogs are becoming blurred
3 - And on that note, I even wonder whether Cornell University asked the right question. I mean, of course bloggers who largely do this as a hobby aren't going to be sources of breaking news. But that's not what the mass of blogs are for.
In 96.5% of cases (see below), they don't break news, they build on news. So just like I am doing with this post here, they take an existing story, add comment, and join the dots with other news stories that have done the rounds.
4 - In 3.5% of cases the news did break on blogs first. "Thanks to innovations like Twitter (which arguably did a better job in keeping the outside world informed during the recent Iranian Presidential elections), and an increasingly professional blogosphere, it's this stat that CNN, the BBC and their ilk need to keep an eye on. As time passes it's only going to rise."
And when blogs do get a scoop before traditional media, the reaction from old school journalists isn't always gracious. Check out this article in UK political magazine the Spectator where Alex Massie takes Ian MacWhirter of The Herald (Scotland) newspaper to task for comments such as: "bloggers don't write, they ejaculate."
Take out comment for me? "That a blog is 'home made' should be no more pejorative a phrase than 'home cooking.' That is, some of it will be terrible and some of it will be better than you'll find in most professional kitchens, or in this instance, newsrooms."
- Iain MacWhirter: "blog - an ugly word for an ugly trade" (snptacticalvoting.blogspot.com)
- Two must reads for today (thisisherd.com)
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