Survey Says: Blogs Not Replacing Journalism Just Yet

By: Vaughn Ververs
Topics: Blog Buzz

(CBS/AP)

A new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project defines the rough size of the blogosphere at about 12 million U.S. bloggers and 57 million blog readers. Those are pretty large numbers on the face of it, but not quite as impressive when broken down a little more in-depth. Here are some the findings, released yesterday:

54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44% say they have published elsewhere.

54% of bloggers are under the age of 30.

Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46% of bloggers and men 54%.

76% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others.

64% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others.

When asked to choose one main subject, 37% of bloggers say that the primary topic of their blog is "my life and experiences."

Other topics ran distantly behind: 11% of bloggers focus on politics and government; 7% focus on entertainment; 6% focus on sports; 5% focus on general news and current events; 5% focus on business; 4% on technology; 2% on religion, spirituality or faith; and additional smaller groups who focus on a specific hobby, a health problem or illness, or other topics.

So, while blogging may be a discussion, it's one dominated by "me." Slate's Jack Schafer digs a little deeper and finds what the study has to say about the notion that bloggers function largely as journalists:

I'm not disparaging bloggers, so please don't treat me to a high-tech lynching. But this study shows that at this early point in the blog era, the great mass of bloggers aren't set on replacing reporters. The top 100 or top 1,000 may consider themselves "citizen journalists" of one sort or another, but the survey finds that 65 percent of bloggers don't consider their output journalism at all. They're just expressing themselves in a leisurely fashion, inspired by a personal experience (78 percent, says the survey), and their blogs are a "hobby" or "something I do, but not something I spend a lot of time on" (84 percent).

Again, I'm not disparaging hobbies or navel-gazing: I have hobbies I can bore you with, and I navel-gaze. But the Pew report indicates that only a tiny fraction of current bloggers have any ambition to fulfill the blogs ?ber alles designs some media theorists plotted for them.

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by Arthur E. Lemay July 21, 2006 4:13 AM EDT: I started reading blogs and other Internet sources several years ago. My favorites are Power Line, Captain's Quarters, Pajamas Media, Michelle Malkin, American Thinker, and others. The Liberal Blogs which tend to be more political and use nasty language and unsupported invective to make their points, I read Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and Juan Cole. Now, with all the major news sources on line, Newspapers, Magazines, Television, Reuters, CNN, AP, and others also available, why is there any room for Blogs? I read the blogs because they are much more timely than the press, and they are much closer to the original sources. I would rather read Iraq the Model -- written in Bagdad by two brothers who are fluent in Arabic, who are there on the scene, and whose objective is to tell the world the real story on the war in Iraq. And, it is not always positive -- they report bad things too. Now, the New York Times and most American news sources and, especially the Associated Press, are so clearly biased against our efforts in the Middle East that I conclude they have confused paratisan politics for news. And, of course, the blogs ferret out these opinions, ahem, lies, and do so in minutes. Now, the best example is Dan Rather's defense of the forged George Bush documents as forged, but true. Is it any wonder that people are reading Internet sources and ignoring the media? And, Pew's surveys are also amoung the most unreliabe and biased in the world.; Reply to this comment


by foobarbaz-2009 July 20, 2006 10:39 PM EDT: WHAT JOURNALISM ARE YOU REFERRING TO IN YOUR HEADLINE?? Was it the gripping war coverage that exposed the truth about the lies behind the fake Wmd? Or was it uncovering the real story behind 911 in a groundshaking expose that made watergate look like kidstuff? Colbert had you scum pegged when he advised you all to finish that book about the reporter who stood up to the administration and got the real story instead of coughing up the party line- you know.. FICTION. There is no news from you fools. Only infotainment and propaganda walking the party line. That is why you are obsolete, pathetic- and deadly. Yes deadly- because people believing your crappy excuse for news make decisions that create large amounts of death overseas. try the truth someday instead of what your corporate sponsors and the bush administration feed you with a silver spoon. Journalism my BUTT.; Reply to this comment