June 25, 2002

Arnold Kling delves into whether

Arnold Kling delves into whether weblogs* are a fad. He has this to say about local news and weblogs:

My prediction is that in niches where the ratio of information value to entertainment value is high, blogs will prove to be superior mechanism for disseminating news. For example, local politics tends to have lower entertainment value than national politics. To me, that implies that at some point we will start to see elections for school board or city council influenced more by coverage in blogs than by coverage in newspapers.

I have a quibble with Kling's prediction and a strong example to back me up. In order for weblogs to influence local elections lots of voters have to read weblogs. There also have to be writers interested in covering local issues. Other than weblogs that monitor their local newspapers, I've seen little of the extensive local coverage needed to be influential. Even though the weblog craze has received a fair amount of coverage in mainstream media, most people, including Internet users, have no idea what they are.

In fact, newspapers are far more influential on local issues. For example, in Milwaukee, a controversial pension plan led to the resignation of the county executive and recall elections for a number of county supervisors. The story broke way back in late 2001 in the quasi-weblog Milwaukee World, but didn't draw any public anger until the Journal Sentinel covered it in early 2002. After the newspaper brought the story to the public's attention, local talk radio inflamed passions that led to a massive recall petition drive for then County Executive Tom Ament

The biggest winner from the scandal, besides newly elected County Executive Scott Walker, was Bruce Murphy publisher of Milwaukee World. He now has an investigative gig with the Journal Sentinel.

It's unclear to me how such widespread public anger could have been aroused if people only got their news through weblogs. In essence, it would have been word-of-mouth. It would be electronic and faster, but still it would be word-of-mouth. There would have been questions of the story's accuracy and whether certain people were just spreading rumors in order to advance a personal agenda. With the newspaper putting it on the front page, it gave the story legitimacy. We may dislike newspapers and big media for their lack of diversity and inanity, but they have the ability to focus public attention on news.

Finally, let me answer Kling's question in the title of his essay. Weblogging isn't a fad. It will be around as long as people have an easy way to publish on the Internet and as long as they have opinions. Since the Net mantra "Information wants to be free" does hold some weight and since people are by nature opinionated, we have the pleasure to be stuck with weblogs for a long time.

"Is Blogging a Fad?"

[* I use the term "weblog" and "weblogging" over "blog" and "blogging" for merely asthetic purposes. "Blog" sounds like the battle cry of a drunk barbarian. I may get used to it in the future.]