It's not David vs. Goliath Why news blogs like TPM Election Central will never replace newspapers but nevertheless make an important contribution to today's media landscape.   It cannot be denied that political news blogs are becoming increasingly popular. More and more people use these blogs to be informed about what is going on in the world. However, those who predict the end of the newspaper concept are definitely wrong. Newspapers will not be replaced by news blogs but there will be a kind of coexistence and mutual influence. This is because the two types of media satisfy different demands made by the users (or readers) and therefore do not always compete with one another.   It's not the one or the other   A news blog offers very detailed, often partisan information about one specific topic, whereas a newspaper (no matter if it is the online or the offline version) provides a more general overview of relevant news. So it would be easy to to conclude that only one concept of providing information will survive depending on which is preferred by media consumers. In view of the rapidly increasing group of supporters of the "new media era" it would be easy to imagine who would win the race. But this winner-loser view neglects one simple fact: a choice between the two types of media is not compulsory, as news blogs and newspapers can both be used simultaneously to obtain information. It just depends on the users’ (or readers’) demands at a certain time.   During the primaries, you can learn almost everything about Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns on TPM: about Obama who had to tackle the gossip saying that he was brought up as a Muslim or about Clinton’s occasional emotional outbursts. The posts are always combined with integrated movies and links to other articles dealing with the issue, and comments can be posted to every entry of the two bloggers, Erik Kleefeld and Greg Sargent. So TPM provides interactivity and a high degree of actuality, as well as a kind of user community (or in the words of Mark Poster: a public sphere) and therefore offers the opportunity to really get into the topic. This is probably a unique way of offering information, exclusively provided by news blogs.   But due to their very specific focus, you won’t find there anything about, let’s say, the subprime mortgage crisis. In order to get such information, sources other than news blogs have to be made use of. And there might be a blog about the troubled housing market in the USA but it is a lot more rewarding to read a newspaper or a news magazine where you are very likely to find other relevant information as well. Overall information and accurate research keep being important characteristics to the readers and these characteristics are still embodied by newspapers.   It is the reader’s challenge to combine these sources of information (blogs and newspapers) in order to realize that e.g. the current financial crisis does have an impact on the US-economy and therefore affects the political campaign as well. But do readers/users face that challenge? There is evidence for that: In their comments, the TPM users exploit information and knowledge that without any doubt comes from outside the blog (and very likely from a newspaper). And we should not forget that TPM sometimes only aggregates or responds to newspaper articles that have already been published.   So it is not a battalion of blog users versus an army of newspaper readers. People simply can be blog users as well as newspaper readers. They just use information from different sources. If they want to have a lively discussion or are longing for attacking the Republican candidates verbally (on a conservative blog the Democrats would be the aim), they will enter a blog and if they want to get a brief, more objective overview of what is going on in the world, they will read a newspaper.    Checks and balances   But what is the consequence for the media landscape? Certainly, there will be more enrichment than harm to journalism. Of course, the relationship between blogs and the old media, especially the papers, is ambivalent: Newspapers would never admit that they sometimes have to report about a story they have not paid enough attention to as a reaction to the lively and emotional discussions held online about this very topic. But that is exactly what happened to the story of the scandal of Senator Lott who praised the racist politician Strom Thurmond or the U.S. “attorney purge” (when the Bush administration pushed out lots of General Attorneys due to dubious reasons). TPM was the first to report about these political scandals, the newspapers lagged behind.   On the other hand, news bloggers cultivate their underdog image and present their work as struggle against the misguided and obsolete old media. But if you look at TPM, you will see that Josh Marshall’s crew continuously link to newspaper articles in order to verify their sources. And when New York Times columnist Frank Rich comments on Josh Marshall’s and his fellow bloggers’ writing: “It’s just good journalistic writing” (quote from an article by Sam Apple), this is something that clearly mirrors any blogger’s desire: to earn the attention and the respect of the good old newspapers.   As a result, talking about the “democratisation” of the media would be an exaggeration but at least the coexistence of blogs and newspapers, of new and old concepts of providing news and information, leads to information pluralism and a system similar to “checks and balances”: Newspapers cannot ignore blogs and have to rethink their writing thoroughly. At the same time, blogs cannot write purest gossip because the users are likely to check information with the help of a newspaper. This leads to an even more reflected, varied and exciting type of journalism. Remember the story of David vs. Goliath? The story is definitely out of place here. To fit in, you would have to rewrite the Scripture: David and Goliath would then just fight rhetorically but would in fact be in need of one another.

by Manuel