BillHobbs.com is a frequently updated blog of original reporting and commentary by Bill Hobbs, a longtime Nashville journalist and media relations adviser. I am currently serving as communications director for the Tennessee Republican Party, a job I began on Oct. 29, 2007.
Online Journalism Review says recent developments at CNET may herald a revival of technology journalism, and has a Q&A with founding CNET editor Jai Singh, who discusses the role of blogs and bloggers in the new media era.
OJR: What Web logs do you like and what do you not like?
Singh: That's a loaded question. We literally have a daily discussion on this topic. We have a lot of top people writing columns and perspectives but we know that the bulk of our readership still comes to us for the news. In one sense, my editor for opinions, Charles Cooper, writes a column that's sort of a blog, and we have this "Your Take" feature now, whereby readers can respond to his column, but it is not a two-way thing.
I think with news the question is which blogger do you really trust. There are so many of them. It seems to me like it's a pretty incestuous thing going on. One journalist points to another journalist's blog and other bloggers point to other people's blogs, and you somehow think that this is the most popular thing. But is it credible? I don't know.
There's this notion that with a blog you don't have to have the same journalistic standards. Obviously I don't ascribe to that. People have busy lives and want to know the facts, and want to know if they are truthful. What I don't like is the credibility factor that falls on my shoulders to figure out. What I do like is the two-way engagement many times, where you are interacting with your readers.
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