A research study on the blog
search engine, Technorati, reveals that in the State of the “Blogosphere” a
total of 133 million blogs are compiled within the net of nets, the Internet.
The arrival of blogs, a kind of personal diary that gives voice to the public in
the world of communication, has brought about the “democratization of
information”, as affirmed by its defenders. Blogs allow any citizen “to be a
journalist and contribute to public debates” with his or her own commentary. On
the other hand, newspapers only allow for a unilateral communication, within
which the writer has the exclusive privilege to talk while the reader only
listens.
Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, is a European from Greece
who at the age of 18 migrated to the United States. She married and had 2
daughters. Only a few of European women achieve the success that Arianna has
enjoyed in the United States. She is an incredible woman, a television
commentator, and author of 11 books. She became a top blogger in the USA with
3.5 million exclusive visitors. She brought the blog format to its limit
creating a New York Times competitor, even more than Boing Boing. Blogs, and
most recently the social networks, are challenging Internet, a world that is yet
to be explored.
These affirmations may seem a bit exaggerated, but Rupert Murdoch, owner of The
London Times, would adhere to them. In the last American Society of Newspaper
Editors Congress, the president of News Corp stated that “too many editors are
not tuned in” with their readers. The press is losing the youth of today, who do
not want to “depend on anyone that descends as a patriarch to tell them what the
news are”.
If this is really happening, it is also true that blogs dedicated to current
affairs tend to be parasites of the press, well, they limit themselves by
publishing what newspapers have already published”, assure newspaper defenders.
It would be an error for the written press to devalue the blog phenomenon.
Instead, the press should take advantage of them by incorporating the public in
the elaboration and evaluation of information, at the same time that webs are
turned into forums of expression by the youth, which will add new nectar to the
old world of journalism. (Translated by Gianna Alessandra Sánchez Moretti)
Author and journalist Clemente Ferrer has led a
distinguished career in Spain in the fields of publicity and press relations. He
is currently President of the European Institute of Marketing.