Blogs Being Jettisoned By Media

The New York Times is shutting down its Bits blog but, as has happened a few times in the media world now, it’s not that the content or the editorial mission is going away, it’s just that it’s being absorbed into the larger Tech section coverage. This is part of a larger trend recently of stand-alone blogs launched a decade ago being folded and their missions moved over into a larger section of an existing media organization’s editorial.

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Somewhere around 2004 more and more media finally recognized the power of blogs. Not that they suddenly began embracing all the blogs in their areas or anything. Oh heavens no. But they launched their own in an effort to be more nimble, cover neglected topics or give their writers more of a conversational outlet, though even then they were often hamstrung by management that didn’t really “get” this whole blog thing. Regardless, suddenly every newspaper and magazine had a dozen blogs.

Now, though, the realities of the 2016 media world are catching up with them. These companies are realizing that having three political blogs on top of their Politics section may be overkill. Not only that, but they each require their own infrastructure and staff and at a time when headcount is being cut left and right to slash costs, all of this just isn’t sustainable.

What’s gained by this is more focus editorially. Instead of having five different writers doing 10 different things on various blogs those remaining are more focused on the things that are “important,” a term that’s usually defined by the editor (or advertising sales team). Limited resources can be put into doing a few things well instead of scattered doing several things just alright.

What’s lost is the diversity of voices that came with the rise of blogs as a whole. It may not make sense for a newspaper to have a blog devoted to X topic anymore, but it may have played an important role within its niche. Or its launch meant someone’s independent blog on the same topic was shuttered, meaning two voices are now gone. At a time when major media outlets are all racing to the bottom of the “viral sameness” barrel it’s more important than ever to have a diversity of voices out there, all working as hard as possible to bring their own brand of weirdness to the marketplace.
It was inevitable that the blog world would mature and some of its ethos seep into the very media organizations blogs originally were meant to, if not counter at least supplement. But now seems to be a bad time for both the independent blog manager and the media establishment that first ignored, then vilified and then co-opted the sandbox those independents were originally playing in.