Beyond 495

Susan H. at Below Boston has a great blog up today (with video) about why people are turning to blogs.

Let’s stop and consider all the ways people get news and information - newspapers,tv,radio,podcasts, actually attending an event on their own initiative, and now blogging. Why is it that only blogging is suspect? Or that somehow we, and the Governor, or any politician for that matter, have “gotten around” the media? Doesn’t the Governor sometimes give exclusive interviews to certain journalists? Or certain radio call in shows? The MSM should look to themselves for the answer why bloggers bother them so much.

Personally, I feel that it is because they feel we are encroaching on their territory and we aren’t getting paid to do this(not that I wouldn’t like to get paid) and that is very threatening; we are high information voters,and heavy consumers of news, and we have found an outlet(blogging and the internet) to share what we find interesting. Sometimes it is simply directing others to articles and information normally given short shrift, and sometimes we actually get to cover a real news event and offer our readers a citizen-journalist/blogger perspective.

That’s it in a nutshell, folks. If we aren’t getting the news we want from the MSM, it just makes sense that something or someone will step in to fill that void. Often times bloggers are the only ones covering certain events, and it’s a good thing too. Because information is a good thing. More information is an even better thing. I’m sorry if that threatens the local media dynamic. Actually, no. I’m not sorry.

I would imagine that some felt this way when Gutenberg invented the printing press. There are no more gatekeepers. If the local media decides they don’t want to cover a subject rest assured that someone in the blogsphere will.

And then someone in the local media will whine about that. It’s just unseemly.