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December 12, 2005Andrew Gowers, Former FT Editor's Views On Blogging
Andrew Gowers the former Editor of the Financial Times from the United Kingdom took part in an interview with Patrick Philips of iwantmedia.com in July of this year. Gowers is now heading up the British Government’s review of copyright issues relating to sound recordings.
Living in the UK in 1980’s, the Financial Times was a particular favorite of mine as a great source of news.
Here’s what Andrew had to say about blogging in the interview with Philips:
IWM: What is your opinion of blogging?Gowers: I think it is both a fad and something of great potential significance. The faddish part is the idea that everybody can be a blogger, and that this will somehow supplant journalism. That's clearly nonsense, and the vast majority of "Daily Me" blogs are like a vast, overheated Internet chat room.
But there are some things of great value out there in the blogosphere, and the growth of blogs has brought into vivid relief the true interactive potential of the Web.
Andrew might be right about the faddish nature of blogs in the sense that the hoopla centered on blogs and the latest launch of a blog will hopefully disappear soon. However, when he states that blogs will not supplant journalism I’d argue that blogs are really just another design of a website. And that the design of a blog leads to higher efficiencies in terms of being able to publish, I think we have already seen certain blogs become important sources of news for many online audiences. But those online newspapers may have to take on more blogging elements if they are going to compete and survive in the 21st century. As this article on community journalism in the 21st century demonstrates, a free paper now has better coverage precisely because the editor is using community journalists to write a lot of their online articles. Leaving the reporters to do more legwork and find original stories.
Posted by johncass at December 12, 2005 10:23 AM
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