Even though tradition-laden outfits like The Atlantic have adopted the blogging format, these blogs aren’t the kind of DIY ventures that we might’ve seen as recently as five years ago. Nearly all journalistic blogs—even Gawker’s—are thoroughly professional. They engage in reporting, they’ve got layers of editors, and they’re aimed at satisfying a target audience in order to gain traffic. They’re called blogs, but they’re really trafficking in articles.
Scott Rosenberg points out that this has little bearing on whether “blogs” remain a popular feature on the Internet; lots of ordinary, nonmedia people will continue to blog as a “labor of love.” That may be true, but we’re still in the midst of an important shift in the way the news business works. When I asked Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds how he defines blogging, he said the most important thing was “the lack of an institutional voice.” Whatever software it uses, he added, “I don’t think the NYT will ever really be a blog, in that sense.
