When AdAge’s Media Guy, Simon Dumenco, discussed blogging as efficiently published writing; blogging does have a parallel in another type of traditional media, too.
“There is no such thing as a blogger,” Dumenco wrote in his recent Media Guy column. Blogging is just writing, something people have done for ages. Dumenco pointed out how the lines between news sources, blog and non-blog, “are rapidly dissolving.”
In reading that, I was reminded of an observation that occurred to me while listening to ESPN’s Dan Patrick on the radio one afternoon. Radio talkers like the ‘en fuego’ Patrick and others are essentially bloggers, in a number of ways:
• Their stories come from what others do, ie, sporting events.
• They frequently reference other reporters or publications in their productions, as well as commenting on stories from those producers.
• Their content gets syndicated, and is freely available to people with the right equipment.
• They have advertising.
• People can comment on the current discussion, in Patrick’s case by calling in and hoping Phil the Showkiller doesn’t drop your call. Again.
Of course, people can go back to blogs to review a topic and the subsequent conversation, while on radio the user either needed to record the show in progress, or pick up the podcast from the subscription-based archive. Economics serves as a big point of difference.
Maybe that’s where media is going. Bloggers with enough authority and knowledge of their topics will become more of a news source than the companies they follow. It isn’t easy to get a straight answer out of the PR cocoon many companies employ (necessarily so, for public companies, unless they enjoy having the SEC stop by with a detachment of grim-faced investigators.)
But getting a blogger to talk, to offer an opinion, that’s practically cheating. Sometimes they’re hard to stop. But frequently, they are the quickest to get a story. To Dumenco, speed stands as the greatest asset a blogger, or anyone in the media, can possess:
“In the very near future, there are only going to be two types of media people: those who can reliably work and publish (or broadcast) incredibly fast, and those … who can’t.”
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David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
