Let them blog

I’ve been reading some of the mass media’s attacks on blogs recently and the thing that struck me was a sense of superiority and also fear on their part. It’s as though they have had enough of people (who usually happen to be bloggers themselves) claiming that blogs will replace the mainstream media. Their critiques of blogs generally tend attack the quality of writing, spelling mistakes and dismal content. If the latter is all true, why are they acting as if they are in fear of their livelihood? Numerous (well at least a few) journalists probably play Sunday football and may have once had dreams of playing it professionally. However, you don’t see Wayne Rooney showing up to watch them and laughing at the standard of play. He knows he is better and doesn’t worry about them replacing him at Manchester United. I doubt he loses much sleep over the handful of fans that choose to watch these matches over his own either. If a player is good enough to play at a higher level he will probably end up moving up to a better standard. The same applies to quality blogs - although, like sport, it doesn’t always happen. They will be read by more people and become more mainstream as a result. But will they replace newspapers? No, they will just be another addition to the ever-increasing amount of information out there. So if someone wants to blog, let them enjoy it and, if you don’t like what they have to say, don’t read it. The only newspapers that should feel threatened by an individual blogger will be of an extremely poor standard and probably don’t deserve to survive anyway.