The blogging barbarians are at the gates

The Holy Trinity of Pajamas Media (left to right): Roger L. Simon, Glenn Reynolds and Charles Johnson (Sissy Willis photo -- from Kudlow & Company the other night, blogged here and here -- Photoshopped into a Renaissance triptych frame)

"While the best blogs are carefully researched, well-written, and cleanly presented, many others are poorly written, tendentious, and primitive looking," writes Peter Hannaford at The American Spectator re the "cracking, popping, drilling and peeling their victims open" that bloggers are visiting upon their betters in the MSM of late:

As more advertising gravitates to blogs, and especially blog networks, a brand of economic Darwinism is likely to prevail: the better sites will prosper; the poorer ones will stumble along or drop out.

Carefully researched, check.

Well written, check.

Cleanly presented, check.

Tendentious.  Uh,oh.

But isn't tendentiousness the appeal of blogs?  Whatever, three out of four ain't bad. Hannaford continues:

Newspapers, in particular, are worried about the blog phenomenon. While editorial types rail about objectivity (as if, for example, the New York Times was objective in its daily selection and treatment of stories), business managers are closely studying the continued decline in circulation.

Network television as a primary source of news has been sinking since the early nineties. In 1993, some 62 percent of Americans cited it as their primary source. Today it's about 38 percent. Cable television is now close to 65 percent. The Internet, first measured in 1996, now accounts for 35 percent. Especially telling are the demographics for Internet news users: 67 percent are under 50 and 36 percent are under 30. These are the sort of statistics that can bring on migraines to newspaper and television business managers.

Somewhere this morning we read a great blog post about the demise of self-appointed elites as the gatekeepers of what the unwashed should and should not know. That's why the MSM is yowling, of course, now that the blogging barbarians are at the gates and deciding for themselves what folks should know.

Update:  Happy, happy, happy. A double InstaLanche.

Comments

[Confederate Yankee]

A double Instalanche? Why on earth would that make you "happy, happy, happy?"

;-)

[Teresa]

I do like how they try so very hard to bring "looks" into the equation. As if how a site looks will continually bring people back. *grin*

Now granted, a blog with fonts or a color scheme that is hard on the eyes will certainly deter me... but I honestly don't care if someone wants to blog with the default MT layout or if they want to snaz it up with a style all their own. If the font is readable - then it's the writing that keeps me coming back. Oh and pics of cute kitties don't hurt either ;-)

Congrats on the double-lanch.

[Sissy Willis]

Kitties make or break it.

[Sgt. Mom]

Hell, I'm about to post some pics of my cats. Sure-fire winner here, people.
But excellant writing doesn't hurt.