Newspapers are in a tough spot. Their main income comes from a printed paper, which is losing readership and relevance among a younger audience. But newspaper websites are doing quite well in readership and in revenues. So the innovation for newspapers is happening on their websites, which are becoming more than just a place for repurposed print stories. Now major newspaper websites include video, podcasts, forums, and even blogs. But CNET recently reported that newspaper-site blogs have been a mixed bag, with blogs that are boring or contain leftover material not fit for print.
So here’s your chance to set the record straight. Do you read newspaper blogs regularly? Which ones do you like? Or do they turn you off? Do you even know about them? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and I’ll run the best ones in next week’s Your Take Roundup.
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I like reading newspaper blogs and read on a regular basis: NYTimes.com, Mercurynews.com and SFGate.com. I read the SF Bay area newspapers to catch up on the tech front.
I also read WashingtonPost.com, Boston Globe, and The Guardian.
I also subscribe to a couple of newspaper blogs via my RSS reader and these include Indian newspapers like Times of India, Deccan Herald and The Hindu.
I browse through a bunch of other newspaper blogs in an almost random manner. The reason they are random is because I read on specific subjects like Technology, Telecom, Web 2.0 and Movies...and news items on these subjects are aggregated from a variety of newspapers.
Kamla
what about magazine blogs?
VICE magazine is an interesting case in point. The printed magazine is free - paid for by advertising. The website publishes new articles every day. AND it has a blog.
http://www.viceland.com
MSM blogs are a mixed bag. Too often, they come across like diaries and not contributions to a conversation. They tend to be unidirectional (as old media is), as if to say, "I'm going to pour my thoughts out and completely ignore the vibrant discussion on this subject that may or may be not going on in the blogosphere."
The Seattle Times now has a full-time paid political blogger on staff, and he does take the time to link to other Seattle-area political blogs:
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/davidpostman/archives/2006/06/in_other_news_2.html
A pretty simple no. I read around ten blogs daily and four of them are written by journalists or former journalists: yours, Nicholas Carr, Jeff Jarvis and Malcolm Gladwell. Of those, yours comes closest to MSM affiliation.
It doesn't matter to me whether newspapers have blog sites or not, a blog is a method of publishing content, the more challenging issue is for a newspaper to publish relevant content, taking advantage of the time it takes to go to print in order to provide a more thoughtful take on things.
Would Seymour Hersh or Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein be better news reporters because blogs enable immediate publishing?
However, I have noticed that the papers to are more progressive and fit in with my world view happen to have embraced technology like blogs.
No. I prefer to get opinions like that from my friends and family.
I rarely read Newspaper blogs. I prefer to spend my time seeking out fresh perspectives outside of the formal media outlets. Global Voice is a nice spot that has plenty of noteworhy blogs to choose from.
http://solshine7.blogspot.com
India-born entrepreneurs empower US voters
Shukoor Ahmed ran for a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates in 1998, after coming to America a decade earlier from Hyderabad, India. Campaigning door-to-door, he was surprised so many voters did not know who represented them!
After his race ended slightly short of victory, he took advantage of his Master’s degree in Computer Technology and Political Science to build StateDemocracy.org, a website he launched in 2001 to connect citizens and lawmakers. His website’s motto encapsulated its mission:
Shukoor Ahmed ran for a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates in 1998, after coming to America a decade earlier from Hyderabad, India. Campaigning door-to-door, he was surprised so many voters did not know who represented them! After his race ended slightly short of victory, he took advantage of his Master’s degree in Computer Technology and Political Science to build StateDemocracy.org, a website he launched in 2001 to connect citizens and lawmakers. His website’s motto encapsulated its mission
so nice and informatic blog going on so keep it up.