November 17, 2003

The Future of Blogs in Journalism

Uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan says blogs will replace traditional editorial pages.

Sullivan said his web site now has a larger audience than The New Republic. He said bloggers are taking power away from editors and publishers, and that traditional media's way of expressing opinion will be outpaced. "The op-ed column is a dinosaur as a genre," Sullivan said. "I think that in the future, newspaper editorial pages will have five bloggers rather than five columnists."

Blogs offer users the opportunity to pick sources they trust and come to respect, forcing writers to be personally accountable information they post online. One of the ways blogs enforce this is through web links that appear with each entry. Sullivan said this is important so that readers are given the tools to form their own opinions. Sullivan believes the public is often skeptical of traditional media, which he referred to as "the man behind the curtain."

Sulivan made the comments during remarks at the Online News Association's 2003 Conference and Awards Banquet in Chigago. Here's a web page listing more coverage of blog-related ONA events. Some of the stories were written by students in the journalism program at the university where I work. This wasn't one of them, but I suggest you read it if you are interested in the future of blogs in journalism.