Reno blogger Ryan Jerz was interviewed by the RGJ for another one of those “Blogs are destroying culture” stories, this time about sports blogs. And at least they managed to work the story so there was a question mark at the end of it — “Are blogs destroying culture?” As usual the answer is “no”, but there are enough creaky old toads out there saying “yes” to let the newspapers pretend that there are two sides to the story.
Jerz gives the only response that needs to be given, that there are crap blogs and there are good ones, just like there are crap newspapers and there are good newspapers, and you can’t let the crap ones bring the good ones down. But the fact that stories like this keep getting written means that we have to keep saying it.
I get the feeling that newspapers are trying to convince us that they have the only legitimate bloggers — bloggers who double as reporters or editors. As Jerz has pointed out in the past, the RGJ (and probably others…) runs stories that don’t offer links to outside blogs. Why don’t newspapers have local blog rolls on their websites? I have to come here to find them.
That said, I do dread the end of newspapers. I’m one of those die-hard subscribers. I just hope that publishers/owners/higher ups realize that cutting back in the newsroom means less content — especially local content. As that happens, no one will read local newspapers OR their websites. They’ll be going to local blogs for their news.
The RGJ did have a blog roll, at least on their Inside Nevada Politics, as I was actually on it. But that was when they had Blogger running the show. On their new system it is just their archives. Not sure if they will do it again. The lack of links in their online stories is annoying though.