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Is My Local Newspaper A Blog?

Monday, December 04, 2006 6:27 AM

So, yesterday evening, I was checking in on a couple of sports stories.  One, the Michigan or Florida Bowl Championship Series debate.   Two, how badly did the Detroit Lions lose?

So, I browsed over to the Detroit Free Press online Sports Section.   As an aside, does anyone actually wait for the print edition of sports news anymore?   Most of what is reported is already stale by the time the paper arrives each morning.   Really, if they wish to regain their relevance, America's print sports sections could use an overhaul.

I digress.   Once the sports section loaded on my screen, here was what I saw.   Headlines.   Beneath each headline, the lead paragaph of the story with a link I could click to read the entire article.  And, a beneath that paragraph a hyperlink that read "Comments."   Which, when clicked, revealed all of the reader submitted comments in response to that particular story (a number of which I read through, some good, some not so good).  It was almost as if the newspaper was offering an open forum for communication on topics of interest to its sports-inclined readers.   Hmmm...

Doesn't the above paragraph accurately describe a weblog?    Has my local paper becoming one big blog?   Okay, so there is no RSS feed for Free Press sports news yet so I can't subscribe.   And, I also can't subscribe to the user comments.  There probably are a couple of other minor differences I am missing (permalinks, trackbacks, etc.).  So, maybe it is not exactly a weblog...yet.

I don't know; maybe it is just me.  But, it sure seems like something is afoot in the print media world.  

No newspaper may ever call their online operations a weblog, but, for me, last night, it sure seemed like I was reading one. 

by Bill Gratsch

Feedback

# re: Is My Local Newspaper A Blog?

Regarding your first point, I seldom read the print edition of any newspaper. With the ease of RSS and the Web, it's just inconvenience. As to whether papers are becoming blogs, this is an interesting observation. One good thing about blogs is they are interactive with readers. However, allowing comments to stories does not make the paper a blog, it simply creates an opportunity for uncensored reader feedback not present with letters to the editor. As you know, lots of papers are adding real blogs, however, including pushing their own reporters to blog. Here's a question: assuming this proves to be a sincere effort with quality blogs, how does it add to the paper's bottom line? Papers certainly can't get the ad rates for online services that they can for a print edition. 12/4/2006 9:24 AM | David Rossmiller

 re: Is My Local Newspaper A Blog?

You make a good point. No doubt ad revenue is a significant issue. And, one I think all print newspapers are currently attempting to addess. I have read that the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are making significant revenue from their online properties, but even in those cases, the revenue is a small percentage of their operation's total revenue. And, none of the revenue has been specifically tied to any blogging efforts at either paper.

I am not yet convinced the Free Press is actually making a sincere effort to publish quality blogs. My feeling is more that they offering some blog-like elements to their pages, but only dipping their toe in the water at this point. The paper has offered more traditional-looking blogs in the past, but they have mostly failed for lack of regular updating.

12/4/2006 8:17 PM | Bill
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