Global Voices Summit - Introduction, Project Outreach and Serious Blogging

Nice to read your post though I longed to read a more detailed one which you would probably pen once you return

Sakshi,

Blogging can never replace mainstream journalism and news establishments. It just cannot. Blogging can supplement it, but it cannot replace. Especially when sites like Rediff themselves have blogs, where their own news people write in. Times and Express have their own sites. So even for news, I might visit them, rather than going around clicking multiple links across scores of blogs.

Blogging is just another medium, like television or newsprint. In fact, Internet is the medium, blogging is the web application. You can say its like the television channel, so to speak (not a good analogy at all, but you get the drift).

Consider the fact that different blogs might be in conflicting views and readers wont trust either for actual news that matters. See the desi blogosphere for example.

Also, how much can a single blog cover. Not much. Say, a bunch of people get together and contribute. Even then , the coverage is not good enough. So they hire people, to work on economy and stock markets section, the sports, the weather, the international news. They grow, hire more people, ask for collaborative effort. Many blogs cooperate, and share content. More growth again. Then they improve the look of the blog. Add more features. Get applications for better content management. End result - You have a plain old Portal !!!

Unless there is an idea, one idea that breaks the rules, say for example, some another method to gather news, blogs are going to remain just blogs.

Many desi bloggers are under the illusion that blogosphere can replace news establishments. As of now, the chances are very bleak.

(In fact, if they can, the bloggers might want to open their own company or something. They might be successful there, given the ugly state of Indian news channels and papers at the moment)

She said, “You don’t need us as the media, you are the media, you have your own media space”.

Yeah Sakshi right. My response was regarding that sentence. Missed that out in the previous response.

Maybe I wrongly linked the above quote to this issue of bloggers replacing MSM. But I do read a lot of bloggers getting excited about being an alternative to MSM. And even newspapers carry stories on how blogs might become a source of news.

Lets consider the average hits of a blog. Say about hundred a day.. Too less for a blog that wants to spread some news.. Famous blogs like amit verma get thousands of hits, but then he isnt exactly a trustworthy source of news, has limited understanding and he has his own agendas. Neutrality will go for a toss, much more badly in case of blogs, than with NDTV support of Sonia gandhi.