June 8, 2004, 12.56pm • 32 comments » • 4,638 Views

“Weblogs ate my brain”

(Via Mateoland) Steve Outing reports that blogger and PR person Steve Rubel conducted an experiment to ascertain whether one can learn about the news solely from weblogs and by ignoring traditional mass media.

The experiment failed. As tested by Outing, Ruben emerged from his webog subterranea with roughly half the news awareness “most” people would have gleaned from offline media.

But that’s hardly surprising. There’s a reason we persist in using Big Media for our broad information needs - news organisations have the experience, facilities, access, specialism and sheer capacity to find, sift, assess and deliver the news.

For all the talk of blogging and the little man usurping journalism and the Big Media, the little man is, nine times out of 10, the consumer rather than the producer of the news.

We’ve all got our own take on that news. Many with a weblog vent that take there. But that doesn’t necessarily constitute journalism.

Even the likes of noted columnist, commentator and blogger Andrew Sullivan mostly comment on news from elsewhere. And even the most blog-friendly of journalists acknowledge that they can only ever skirt around the real stories.

This is meta-journalism - linking to and writing around the groundwork that is and can only be dug by Big Media.

Unless you’re reading a blog that breaks news or has a significant new angle to offer (which does happen from time to time), you should regard bloggers as your opinionated gateway to the news.

This experiment underlines something that should come as no big surprise. Blogging isn’t usurping journalism; it’s complementing it.