What is blogging?

"A Weblog is focused on finding and linking to the work of others as opposed to original reporting. Romenesko is aimed at the journalism community, a group that’s pretty sophisticated about appraising sources of information. Poynter has made a conscious decision to alert those journalists/readers to journalism news without characterizing the quality of the information. We leave it to the readers to judge the reliability of the original material," according to Romenesko Blog

"As hard as the media tries to be inclusive, we cannot be all things to all people. So why not invite people to be all things to each other? By asking community members to create weblogs, you could include a wide range of views on your website -- broader and deeper than you could possibly include in print or on the air for every story -- and measure success not just by pageviews or revenue, but by the increased diversity of your coverage," according to Julie Moos's Blog

So blogging, at least the type that isn't just someone's personal online diary, seems to be an opportunity to actually democratize the media. Why aren't the communities frequently excluded from news coverage jumping on board with the blogging trend? Why aren't newspaper taking this potentially revolutionary trend more seriously? Does it threaten the printed word?

I think many print journalists are afraid for the future of newspapers and magazines because of the growing popularity of online, grassroots journalism. They believe online journalism will make their printed word obsolete. But fearing the trend won't make it go away. Their fear will ensure their obsoleteness, in fact, because they will refuse to embrace the trend, to strengthen their professional "objective" work with a more personal, "subjective" reflection on their work.

I think too, that the point about giving sub-communities their own Web log under the bigger community's web space is a great idea. It would empower people to cover themselves in their own words and would strengthen both the newspaper's coverage and also trust as an accurate reflection of the community. I would love to work for a newspaper that hosted blogs from its readers.