Blog news was not a concept of common discourse until the early 2000s, but, in such a brief period of time, it is coming to replace print journalism. It is even possible to make money from blog news today if one works for an SEO, or search engine optimization, firm. Blogs are everywhere and so are bloggers, frame basements to America’s highest corporate towers. It is possible to start an internet news site with very little financing. In fact, all that is really necessary to provide online news is the ability to pay for a computer and to pay the internet bill.
While blogger news itself is new, the genre of blogging, or at least something very close to it, without the technological format, has existed for centuries. Pamphleteers were in some ways the first bloggers. And, for people who worry about the partisan nature of blog news, they can rest assured that much of the pamphleteering of the early republic was no more civil.
But much of it was important. Some of these pamphleteers, like Thomas Paine, played a significant role rallying support for the American Revolution. And occasionally, like today’s bloggers, they were capable of making money through their political writings. It is perhaps, in some ways, more difficult to make money blogging than it was at previous times in the past decade. The reason why making money blogging can be more difficult is because there are so many voices available now. There are so many perspectives for people searching out blog news to choose from.
It no longer takes millions of dollars to reach millions of people. Blog news can go out anywhere.
Nonetheless, blog news is probably going to become an increasingly important form of media for the foreseeable future. It is difficult to say how long the blog will last before it is replaced by some other form of media. But, for now, the blog appears to be fairly safe. It is a democratic means of breaking news and a way for everyone to have an equal opportunity for a voice. The world won’t read every letter that everyone sends to it, but at least now everyone has an opportunity to mail the letter.