This started as a comment to Booman’s story, WSJ: Critiquing Blogs. As so often happens, there was a lot to think about and my comment entered that gray area between comment and diary. A dia-ment? Well, whatever it is, certainly in the rough.
There is at least one overlooked point in the WSJ comparison of bloggers & traditional reporters. There is an overlapping range of goals for the two groups. Three keys goals of both are reporting, advocacy, and community building. These goals are intertwined. The first two are often blurred, and the distinction is often in the eyes of the beholder. Although we don’t usually think of it as such, the WSJ also works to build a community, a group of people with common interests. The key difference in my mind is that bloggers and blogging are more democratic, more inclusive, more conducive to building communities, than are traditional media.
We are living through, and to one degree or another, participating in, a Jeffersonian generational revolution. For all our faults and growing pains, I think we are on the right side, the side of openness and democracy.
There is a place here for an analysis of the economic structures of reporting in the MSM and blogging, but I defer to those with more knowledge of the subject. I can only pose this question: How can we of the blogosphere create communities that provide economic freedom for the talented reporters among us to have the time and opportunity to report and for the passionate, informed advocates to effectively advocate?
yeah. I’m totally broke.
I don’t know the answer, but it would be nice if there was more money in blogging. It’s a problem for the left. Yearly Kos is really struggling to keep costs affordable for people. People like me are losing money hand over fist to do this.
And I could easily go work for a newspaper instead.
Funding is a issue that must be addressed. If you were in a newspaper, I’d subscribe. If you had an article in a magazine, I’d buy a copy. The money would get to you, eventually and very partially. The model of funding through minimal ads and small rake-offs from merchandise is a public TV model, without the government support, grants, and most importantly memberships.
There needs to be a new model of funding for the new media. This is especially important as the Net Neutrality attacks roll on. The opposition is well funded and united. The blogging community needs to put its many talented heads together and figure out a way to fund worthwhile blogs.
Before I start to toss out some ideas, let me say that I have no knowledge of how this site is funded, other that what I have gathered from observing the growth of this and other sites. Booman, I also do not mean to step on your toes by making suggestions about your blog. I have come to value this space very highly. It has helped rekindle my love of writing that I thought was lost. I owe you and this community, especially KS who bugged me for a long time to start writing here, a great deal of thanks. I want to see this community flourish.
1) Investment:
Organize the ownership of the site so that people can invest in the site. The type of investment can defined in some way so that the ownership is not affected. This sort of investment is not intended as an income generator, but as support. The role of the investors would have to be determined.
2) Subscription:
Organize the ownership of the site to allow voluntary subscriptions.
3) Work with other prominent bloggers to get grants from philanthropists and other grant making institutions.
3a) Perhaps, create some of kind of review board that monitors readership and quality in Progressive blogs and directs funds garnered by 3 to support existing blogs, and encourage new, promising ones.
4) Look into ways of sharing the hardware costs and management costs between many blogs. (Surely this is already done.)
I am no expert in these matters. All these things may be A) impossible, B) already in existence, C) really stupid, or D) possibilities. I only want to open the conversation. What do you think?
Another idea I’ve had for some time – though I have no idea how to implement it, is that there needs to be an insurance group for progressive political blog owners. Many (but certainly not all) political bloggers are young, but this certainly does not insulate them from health problems. Some have families. They should not have to depend on spouses with jobs that come with insurance in order to have health coverage.
Yes, this is one of the issues we are fighting for, but we shouldn’t expect blog owners to put their entire communities at risk by being taken out by the expense of a physical problem that insurance would handle somewhat smoothly. And we are the communities at risk: If Booman had to shut down, for whatever reason, due to financial crisis, our community would be lost.
I don’t think this insurance can be done within a blogging community, but it could be set up across the blogosphere. There used to be some nonprofit insurers that would take on new risk groups outside their usual clientelle. This might be something to be researched, if anyone knows about such things. I’m not an expert, but I have heard of such things.
Okay, I know this is going to sound like I am plugging my own design sites but it is not. Cafe Press has an arffiliate program where blog woners can sign up and recieve 20% od the selling price from anything that sales from a hit from their blog. They can do topic ads that are free and it will automatically pull designs in with certain serch words such as democrat, anti-conservative, anti-war…. the list goes on. Of course if anyone does use it, I hope they will let cafe press know I referred them. LOL