January 14, 2002

The Triumphalism of the Blog People...

...vs. the complacency of the Media People?

Virginia Postrel tries to deflate the t. of the B. P., as Jonah Goldberg did last week. (On Goldberg's attempt, see my comments below, from Saturday's blog barrage.) She obviously knows what she's talking about, and I'm sure she's right about the economics of opinion writing; but, like many of the Media People, she's looking at it from the wrong angle.�

Of course blogging won't replace the traditional media. But the Blog People (both bloggers and readers) matter because they are as a group the most ardent consumers of news and opinion journalism. They are getting more involved in "the process" than ever before, and, I think, shaking things up a bit more than some would like to admit. But the Media People had better get used to it. Jonah Goldberg will never again be able to write a column without taking the Blog People into account; at this point, I'd say he has few readers who are not also InstaPundit readers-- and many of them are themselves bloggers. Granted, the New York Times editorial page has less of an overlap among readers. Call me a triumphalist, but I think that is bound to change as well. What is indisputable, though, is that these writers are (or ought to be) paying attention. The Media People discount the Blog People at their peril.

Professor Reynolds, once again, puts it best:

the bigger effect is below the surface. Not only are Big Media exposed to ideas from outside the all-too-hermetically-sealed world of Big Media, but they find themselves criticized, often very cogently. (Even if they don't surf, they'll find this when they Google themselves. And, you know, they do.) The criticism may or may not change their minds on particular points, but the knowledge that it takes place, and that others in their own circles are reading it, is likely to affect their thinking, or at least their writing and reporting. (In fact, I believe that it already is, but that's a topic for another post.) For while the economy of The Benjamins is important, my brother the historian notes that a major phenomenon in history is people's willingness to value status over money. And gossip (which in a way is what webloggery about mainstream journalists is) has always been a powerful determiner of status.

Long, long ago, (i.e., a month ago, when when I had just started this little blog and nobody was reading it) I wrote that blogging was like punk rock. I was talking about it from the point of view of the band (that is, the semi-amateur "content provider") but I think the analogy fits the audience and the industry as well. In the mid-seventies, the most ardent, committed consumers of rock and roll music (the people for whom rock and roll was something like a religion) had a distinct lack of interest in what the music business had on offer. They may have been outnumbered by the mass audience, but they ended up having an influence that ripped the industry apart. It didn't mean that record companies stopped putting out Journey records. But they had to take the Ramones into account, and the eventual result was a sea change in music, in fashion, and in popular culture in general.

Is Glenn Reynolds the Ramones of op-ed journalism? Gabba gabba hey?

Posted by Dr. Frank at January 14, 2002 09:46 AM | TrackBack