Blogs: The future of journalism Last month, Google, the largest Internet search engine, bought out Pyra Labs, distributor of Blogger.com's free blogging software. More than 1.1 million users are registered with Blogger, making it the industry leader. While this did not make the news in Japan, in the United States, the Washington Post considered it newsworthy enough to comment that this was proof that blogging was becoming mainstream.
Interestingly, it was a blog that scooped this news as well. Dan Gillmor, a well-respected tech columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, posted the breaking news on his own blog. At that point, other bloggers got in line to link to his blog, and the news spread like a wildfire. By the time the Mercury had been distributed the next morning, everyone from respected journalists to students had voiced their thoughts online. This is a great example of how blogs encourage readers to link to other blogs and even to large publications to give feedback. According to Gillmor, this is "an emerging era of multidirectional, digital communications. The audience can be an integral part of the process. Call it 'We Media.' Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode -- here's the news, and you buy it or you don?t -- to include a conversation." Gillmor says "I think more journalists should do Weblogs, and I am surprised that more have not." Rebecca Blood, author The Weblog Handbook, says, "I don't consider Weblogs to be a new form of journalism. I consider them to be a form of participatory media." Joseph Lasica, columnist at the University of Southern California's Online Journalism Review, says "Most Weblogs aren't journalism, and most bloggers don't fancy themselves journalists. But for those who perform many of the functions of journalism -- the editorial function of selecting newsworthy and interesting topics, the editorial function of analysis, insight and commentary, the added dash of humor and vivid writing (now more often found in magazines than newspapers), the occasional first-person report about an event, a trend, a subject -- then I think they are acting in a journalistic role. "Journalism is undergoing a quiet revolution, whether it knows it or not," said Lasica. "Readers will always turn to traditional news sites as trusted, reliable sources of news and information -- that won't change. But the walls have fallen. The scope and mandate of journalism have expanded." At the other end is Joichi Ito, blogger and President of Neoteny, a company that has been involved in the Internet since its early days in Japan. "There is more of a silent majority that cannot express themselves in Japan than in the United States," he says. "As the [old Japanese] saying goes, 'the nail that sticks out gets pounded down,' but when it comes to change, Japan is also the first to change drastically. I only hope that once blogging tools become more widespread, that will create an environment that encourages all people to speak up." This article was originally published in Japanese in The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest newspaper. It ran in March as a series of three articles. It was translated by Japan Media Review staff, and is republished with permission.
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