I know a lot of people that would have gladly hosted and done the dirty work over there for a fraction of the take.

My point is, not really to bash Andrew (slap the wrist a bit), but to point out that when there is money in the blogosphere, it isn’t being put back into it. Like the argument often made about blacks who “make it” and then move into affluent white neighborhoods and schools, and not give back to the community. Granted, I think a blogger who can make a living blogging, should, and more power to them if they choose to do so. But some, like Sully, also had day jobs that weren’t to be sneered at.

There is some excellent team work and collaborative effort, but we almost seem ready to see some resource sharing, like in parts of the open source software world. A blog journalism equivalent of Sourceforge or the like.

Just don’t ask for my help in Cat blogging.

With literally millions of bloggers out there, the Press no longer has the ability to function as the gatekeeper for knowledge. Case in point: look at what happened with the Eason Jordan affair – bloggers who happened to be at the same conference reported on what Jorday said while the Press kept mum. It’ll be harder for the Press to self-censor if they know that the word will get out regardless of their attempts to suppress it.

I don’t think that a lack of money is really a problem for the blogosphere. Well, maybe it is for the blogosphere as it is constituted today, but not for the ‘journosphere’ as a whole.

I think that the Fox News phenomenon will grow, and that someday soon an enterprising news organization will rocket out in front of its competitors by providing the reportorial manpower to follow through on the bloggers’ best news tips. “Where is the proof of Benan Savan’s Valentine’s Day love letter to Saddam?” asks RogerLSimon.com. Bam! Bloggers United News (BUN) spends a few grand and gets the scoop on their front page.

(Full disclosure: I’m neither a writer nor a journalist, and my ‘blog’ consists of a Dr. Seuss quote, so what do I know?)

Consider that 10 years ago we would not even have known Jordangate had happened. As costs of information capture and distribution fall it is not unreasonable to suggest that in 10 years time anything that is done in a public forum anywhere would be distributed world wide instantly. So everyman a reporter is coming, whether the M$M likes it or not.

However, the investigative reporting, OFF/UNscam type scandal may become more difficult to pursue for exactly the reason Roger identifies. Who will pay Claudia Rosetti to spend a year or more digging into what the powers want hidden?

The powers’ probelm will be that less and less can stay hidden. Look at what Sharkansky has done with the crooked voting in Seattle and Captain’s Quarters, et. al. in Milwaukee. I expect there to be more grass roots investigation of election fraud every year. The push for transparency in all institutions will continue, regardless of how the blogosphere develops. And there will be more and more Sharkansky’s to track down anomolies.

http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2005/02/04/what-saddam-bought-when-he-bought-eason-jordan/

Major advertisers like General Electric and Proctor & Gamble are simply afraid of controversy. They rightfully are concerned that the MSM will highlight their placements on blogs such as Instapundit.com and Rogerlsimon.com. Nonetheless, Iím convinced that eventually one of these corporations will take the plunge and the others will immediately follow. The numbers simply make too much sense. Rogerís site , for instance, has a high number of affluent visitors. Advertisers simply cannot afford to ignore these people.

> growing, we have one gaping weakness – money.

> We can’t afford to do that digging.

I disagree with this. The weakness with bloggers is not lack of money. The weakness with bloggers is, for the most part, their unwillingness to *get off the computer*. A lot of mainstream media reporting requires an expense account and lots of shoe leather and having a staff of reporters and so on, yes. But at least as much of it involves *using the phone* to call up officials and experts, checking facts, and all that. E-mailing people is simply not a fully effective medium, because e-mail can be avoided, replies can be delayed or finessed, and as odd as it may seem, many important people are not easily accessible via e-mail. If you look closely at many MSM stories, they are largely or entirely generated via phonecalls, with e-mail only as a supplement.

And the thing is, bloggers can do this. They can call people up, generate contacts, chase down stories. There are ways of doing this, even when they don’t have the power of the MSM name brand, to get their foot in the door. (Though even there, I have a pet theory that calling up a public official and saying, for example, “Hi, I’m a reporter for Instapundit, I’d like your comments on a story we’re writing…” would produce results more than you’d think.)

Dial 411, people! You can pretty much get any listed number in the country that way, nowadays.

First of all, thanks for the interesting reading. Maybe I can give something back.

Second of all, I can see the frustration with resources, but I think you have options.

I’ll bet blogging isn’t a cash cow, but you do have eyeballs. In the cash department, eyeballs ain’t worth much as the 90′s bubble proved. However, I think you do have resources that can be more important than $$.

Eyeballs vote. And they read your blog. Lots of them do.

Our elected officials certainly have the cash to follow up on Mr. Jordans comments, and as I heard it, two of them were there. If his comments are true I sure as f*ck want to know, whatever the consequences. If we are being lied to on this scale, the elected officials present certainly should be looking into this.

If we aren’t being lied to then no big deal, just another idiot wingnut ranting against the “insert US policy here”.

If we are being lied to, and the only reason the word doesn’t get out is $$, then the new medium is ineffective, and will soon fade.

But I don’t think so.

Aren’t we the government?

Maybe someone with a blog and some people power could ask those elected officials that were present what they think of Jordan’s statements?

And maybe publish the results.

This eyeball would be interested to hear what our elected officials have to say about those statements. I’ll bet a portion of the blogosphere would too.

An email doesn’t cost much, and us eyeballs sure would like to know what elected US officials think of Jordan’s statements…

I’d say that is journalism, and you don’t need money or a degree to do it. Just an inquisitive mind. (and eyeballs)

Thanks for the soapbox!

I was surprised at how good the return was on common stock and the extent of the NYT operation was an eye opener.

As to blog ads, I don’t know how well they work. I don’t notice them much myself. The other problem is that an investigative journalist isn’t going to publish very often. How many articles a year? I would guess half dozen at most. So just to keep the interest up there has to be a variety of other things going on and a lot of people posting. Starting to sound familiar? I suppose our current media are the result of long term experimentation and selection and are pretty well adapted to their niche.

windowlicker:

Linux is neat, but Linus is an exceptional guy. Read his posts on LKML and watch how he handles people and patches. He is not just a technical whiz. If not for Linus I expect we would still be waiting for the HURD and running BSD and Windows. And as Andrew Morton pointed out, open source tends to have its greatest success in areas where the IP value has already been wrung out and a commodity infrastructure is needed that can be shared.

Anyway, I don’t see anyone out there to fill Linus’ role for blog journalism. Well, I suppose Instapundit is somewhat analogous. Hey, all Glen needs is a bitkeeper drop in so he can pull stories from his lieutenants Come to think of it, isn’t the AP a form of open source? Hmm…