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By Will Sturgeon, 24 August 2005 07:00

COMMENT Blogging: have you bought into the idea that this is the new power in global media or are you still of the opinion that it's little more than a handful of egotists with an axe to grind and an overblown sense of their own importance? In the first part of a two-part column Will Sturgeon looks at the long-term impact blogs could have on the media.

One of the most common questions we are asked about the effect of blogs is the impact they will have on the likes of us - the existing online media brands. As television usurped radio and as the internet usurped magazines and newspapers, so, the argument goes, blogs will replace the global online media brands.

But I think this is far from the case.

Over lunch the other day, during a lively conversation with a committed blogger, I claimed no media brand ever went out of business that didn't deserve to.

I stand by that.

The arrival of the internet in the publishing space need not have sunk so many paper titles as it did. It's not that the internet made it impossible for them to exist, it's that they didn't see it coming, or didn't take the threat seriously.

I'd argue too that blogs pose less of a threat to online media brands than these brands did to the paper-based titles when that was the showdown du jour, because the very nature of blogs is that they are a post-modern invention which is fundamentally self-referential in terms of the space they occupy on the internet.

One of the most powerful ways in which blogs work is by digesting the media, linking to and referencing that which is already out there and in doing so imposing the personal filter and opinion of a blogger who the readers want to entrust to make those decisions.

But discerning readers also shop around for perspective. On this level blogs are complementary and entirely valuable, in some respects even reinvigorating web surfers and challenging them to constantly assess the way they consume media.

As such that puts pressure on the large media brands to never risk being seen to stand still but this comes back to the point of identifying the change and not seeking out extinction through inaction.

In terms of assessing the impact of the blogs, at the heart of the issue is news. People will always want news and I'd argue that for all the valuable comment they provide this will always be where blogs fail - not only because the delivery of updates is still random, unreliable and largely unstructured. While RSS resolves some of these issues the biggest issue I see is with the content itself.

There are a great many blogs out there which will make claims, presented as fact, that an established media brand simply could not because the claims have not been stood up as rigorously as a media brand may demand of its journalists. Of course mistakes happen with both approaches but one is undeniably more risky than the other.

Often these claims may be founded on some fairly flimsy gossip, and the blogs have the right to run with this, perhaps accepting less legal liability for their actions - though this is an area of growing debate - and adopting less concern about the nature of their reputation, given the leeway afforded to blogs in the minds of readers who may liken what they read on a blog to something they hear in the street.

But as such, blogs also forgo the opportunity to be seen as a standalone media. Valuable as opinion, where the blogs of respected commentators are concerned, but unable to overthrow the hold larger brands have on news.

Occasionally of course, the blogs can claim to have scooped everybody with a story, when their gamble pays off - often because they may steal a march on mainstream media by exploiting the anonymity of the internet to leak an insider's view on a story or situation - but there is also the awareness among readers that they may, more often than not, be wide of the mark and that such scoops may be so far apart, given the limitations in the reach of the blogger's contacts, that returning readers soon tire of wild goose chases.

Readers may therefore choose to wait until they see such claims repeated from a source who they have grown to trust before taking it as gospel.

Take an example of a group of six men discussing football down the pub. One tells the group that a friend of a friend, who knows the kit man at Liverpool's son, says Michael Owen is going to sign for Liverpool on Friday. There's not a man around that table who would go out and buy a Liverpool shirt with 'Owen' printed on the back until they had heard it confirmed on the BBC, for example, and had been convinced it was fact and not speculation.

Similarly they might disagree about subjective matters - who is better, Owen or Wayne Rooney - but may agree to go with the opinion of a respected pundit. More likely that pundit is still somebody associated with a major media brand than merely a seventh man in the pub - which for many is still the status the independent blogger enjoys, albeit a seventh man with some claims to strong connections.

A media brand which its readers respect can still be an arbiter and while there are some very well-respected writers of blogs I would argue few occupy that position, often because the editorial board and the hierarchy of a blog consists of a jury of one.

Blogs make for compelling reading and an interesting perspective but you would rarely take their word into an argument as a credible source of arbitration. It is valuable opinion but readers should be wary of what they take as fact and while news continues to play a major part in our media intake the respected and established brands will continue to thrive on their reputations.

Do blogs have that authority? Often I would argue no. It's not to say the writer isn't authoritative, often they are incredibly authoritative but I believe it will be some time before discerning readers take their word as anything other than that - just their word.

Of course it's long been known that more traditional media have their prejudices and biases as well but these are often along established and fairly measured lines which the reader has willingly bought into.

And the vast number of blogs drilling down into ever more niche areas could create 'information ghettos' if seen as standalone rather than complementary to the wider media.

This does highlight where there may be some pretty minimal attrition from readerships. Those with niche interests, covered only occasionally by the mainstream media may seek out a blog, or a number of blogs which cover events in their field of interest and share their opinions.

The Apple fan who only wants to read good things about Apple may seek out the blogs of Cupertino employees or the founders of Mac tribute sites.

But the number of people happy to exist within such an information ghetto is surely minimal in the internet age where there is more media than ever before available and the route from one to the other is increasingly easy to navigate.

So to return to the initial question, what does the blog phenomenon mean to the media? It means those mainstream sources which people value - from the newspapers they are proud to carry under their arm, to the websites they're happy to have open on their desktop - will easily survive.

Readers will continue to use mainstream websites to confirm and qualify breaking news, sometimes admittedly after a blog has tipped them off.

But the low-hanging fruit which already lack the credibility or authority to provide much added value above and beyond the obvious appeal of the blogs may well start to feel the pinch, more so as blogs grow in popularity.

Some may well go out of business but I repeat my earlier point - this will happen because they deserve to, because they didn't position themselves high enough above the rising tide.