At The Issue blog, clarity took a moment:
Blogs are not about giving everyone an equal voice.
Some blogs are better than others. So people will naturally gravitate to a few, leaving the vast majority in the desktop trash bin. This is not an egalitarian internet and there’s no taxation and redistribution of traffic. Power over information is not democratized – it is simply transferred. The HuffingtonPost replaces the New York Times.But what does change is a direct connection between the reader and the blogger. And why will the HuffingtonPost overtake the New York Times? Because to win over your customers you need more personable customer service (since the price is already 0) – And so in news – you need personality. Blogging democratizes within the media organization itself not the field of media. Removing the need for layers of editors and revisions, blogging allows the writer’s personality and perspective to shine through. And this will always win. Why?
Because as humans we are primed to seek out and respond to other people. Marketers know this as they pay athletes and movie stars to endorse products, reporters and PR people know this as the stories that sell best are the “human interest” ones. The most widely read articles in any newspaper are always the Op-Eds. Reality television makes a lot of money.
The current news revolution is all about putting people back into the focus of the news in every manner possible. That is the race for the bomb and that’s how you win in media. Let’s just hope it’s not MAD as well.