Are bloggers the heir-apparant of the independent weekly?

September 6, 2003 7:10 PM

Are bloggers the heir apparent of the independent weekly? Welch: For all the history made by newspapers between 1960 and 2000, the profession was also busy contracting, standardizing, and homogenizing. Most cities now have their monopolist daily, their alt weekly or two, their business journal. Journalism is done a certain way, by a certain kind of people. Bloggers are basically oblivious to such traditions, so reading the best of them is like receiving a bracing slap in the face. It's a reminder that America is far more diverse and iconoclastic than its newsrooms.
posted by skallas (4 comments total)

fwiw, rcb's weblogs: a history and perspective and tom coates'
(weblogs and) the mass amateurisation of (nearly) everything... :D still tho, no mention of the seminal slashdot!
posted by kliuless at 9:08 PM on September 6, 2003

Cool read.
posted by dejah420 at 9:50 PM on September 6, 2003

Bio: Matt Welch ([e-mail]) is an associate editor for Reason magazine, a regular columnist about the U.S. for Canada's National Post, and a cofounder of the Web site LAExaminer.com.

That's funny, I thought the LA Examiner was a not-yet-regularly-published "alternative weekly" financed by politically-incorrect LA gazillionaire Richard Riordan and co-edited by Welch. Somebody might want to fact-check CJR.

personal disclosure: I used to work as a bean-counter for a company Riordan had a financial interest in. I once considered trying to sell story ideas to Welch and the LA Examiner before my anti-psychotic meds kicked in.
posted by wendell at 1:30 AM on September 7, 2003

Nothing strikes me as more cutting edge than Internet punditry, not to mention writing for the Columbia Journalism Review.
posted by raysmj at 11:51 AM on September 7, 2003