How Mainstream Journalists Benefit from Blogs

Gristmill: "Long have I suspected that New York Times staffers sit around trolling Grist. At last, here's the evidence..."

Word on the street is that the news media/industry is going to start ignoring and even trashing blogs as a competing medium.

I'm sorry to see it happen. While it's true that bloggers rely on media for much of their linking, and that blogs are stealing "eyeballs" (readers) from media, it's also true that, as the Gristmill piece notes, journalists frequently riff off bloggers' ideas and creativity.

The issue here is that bloggers are quick on the draw (not having to rely on publication or broadcast schedules) and tend to know infinitely more about a given issue than journalists, who typically are conversant on many subjects but expert on none. (I say this as a 35-year veteran of professional reporting and 6-year veteran of blogging, with curiously little overlap.) This is especially true today when a generational turnover is taking place, making lots of young, inexperienced and unseasoned reporters and editors responsible for coverage requiring ever-increasing sophistication and expertise. Most of this is the result of the Internet. It might be said that bloggers have always existed; they just haven't had an easy or effective way to reach their audience. It might also be said that media have never reported all that well, but the Internet exposes their weaknesses more glaringly. That would raise the question of why news media do not simply hire bloggers. The answer is highly complicated but generally has to do with control. Case in point: The Washington Post's newsroom rift over blogger Dan Froomkin. Media employees tend to self-censor and write "sanctioned" news. Bloggers are comparative wild ducks. Again, though, they've got the chops: Jeff McIntire-Strasburg of Sustainablog and Joel Makower have far more depth, subtlety and wisdom on green issues than any mainsream medium I'm aware of.

More to the point might be why media simply don't do their job better, diluting bloggers' fodder. There was a time, when I first was drawn to journalism, that it championed the underdog, scoffed at government and corporate PR, and identified with the common person. Of course, it paid terribly and had little glamor or cachet. Strong on values, short on valuation. How far the reverse has become true!

To get back to Gristmill's original point, yes, media do poach bloggers. They seldom give credit (in outright scoops they generally do, but idea-lifting is a different matter) but the issue should be cross-linking, as bloggers do to other bloggers. Many media resist linking to any source outside of their own archives; others who do keep the constellation of links well within other mainstream outlets. Until this mentality changes, bloggers can rightfully feel they're being exploited unfairly.

blogs blogging mainstream media Sustainablog GreenforGood Joel Makower green blogs

McDonald's Going Green?

Triple Pundit: "McDonalds has an interesting and quite transparent "corporate social responsibility" blog which is actually worth reading and participating on. Recently they ran a little piece on packaging which lays out McDonald's environmental policies in that regard. They've come a long way from the days of styrofoam and point out the following recent accomplishments:

Napkins are smaller and contain recycled content.
Happy Meal boxes are made partly from recycled newspapers.
Our trayliners have recycled newspaper content too.
We've trimmed the amount of material used in our French fry and McNugget cartons.
Our straws use less material."

global warming ecological footprint carbon footprint GreenforGood sustainability green lifestyle