12/01/03 - 9:00 AM - John Dvorak, in a PC Magazine editorial entitled "Co-opting the future", writes:
We're told that blogs will evolve into a unique source of information and are sure to become the future of journalism. Well, hardly. Two things are happening to prevent such a future: The first is wholesale abandonment of blog sites, and the second is the casual co-opting of the blog universe by Big Media.
First, blogs are still being created much faster than they are being abandoned (through the end of 2003, 3.3 million hosted blogs will be active, compared to 1.7 million abandoned blogs). Second, blogs have already emerged as a unique source of information; in the United States, bloggers far outnumber our 52,000 reporters and correspondents. Third, as a communications medium, blogs can and are used for many different types of communication, including professional uses; notable media blogs include Gawker, Gizmodo, The Kicker, a Boston.com Job Blog, even The Old Grey Lady has a blog (Kristof Responds).
It's ironic to read a columnist saying blogs aren't one possible future for journalists, when blogs are clearly one possible future for columnists: opinionative riffs on the news, published on the Web instead of on paper.