A day late and several bits of change short, let me point folks to articles of interest.
Editor & Publisher denigrates blogs in its year-in-review section.
The point I'm concerned with reads:
"Blah, blah, Blogs: Probably the most hyped online development in 2003 (along with growth in site registration), but will these self-important online journals actually change the way newspapers do journalism on the Web?"
Does it matter? Blogging doesn't exist as a fixed thing. It's a medium. Like any medium, it benefits a certain type of communicator -- in this case those with time and words to spare.
But blogs won't succeed or fail based on whether they revolutionize newspapers, which are another medium altogether. They will succeed or fail based on people keeping them and networks forming around them.
In other happenings, a Naples Daily News columnist apologizes for his not-at-all-racially-charged column.
Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times writes about it. Key paragraph:
"For this black reader, seeing Batten's parody felt like watching an Amos and Andy routine. Forget about the tenuous connection between hip-hop slang and a failed concert; the story felt like a veiled racist joke, implying that the limited intelligence of people who talk a certain way was the real reason the concert failed."
Kudos to the newspaper, though, for keeping the column up on its Web site and linking to criticism.