We Want Media

The Syracuse Post-Standard’s Jeff Kramer is sick of threats that the era of the newsboy is over. He double-dog dared the media –- “One day without newspapers. For 24 hours, let the shock jocks, 'The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,' the bloggers and the rest of the 'new media' darlings run with the ball.”

Kramer brings up a good point. As much as we love blogs and bloggers, most people differentiate them from journalists. Reporters will always have the threat of bloggers at their heels replacing them, but if journalists were to stop for one day, how many bloggers can actually do their research? Bloggers reap the benefits for questioning Dan Rather (or “Rathergate”) and raising an eyebrow toward the claims of “weapons of mass destruction.” But when it comes to the nitty gritty investigative research, I don’t think they’re up for it.

Why? Because for most bloggers -– time. Blogging is not their full-time job, and thorough fact-checking and information gathering from the ground up is not what they do. Instead, most bloggers copy and paste and recite information with their own spin. Secondly, many bloggers have no specialization, which goes hand in hand with being able to comment intelligibly at length on a subject.

I doubt the traditional media machine can stop for a day, but how about you bloggers (or should I say us bloggers?) generate original content for one day (without reference to anything that had already been covered)?