Journalism blogs
: Prof. Jay Rosen, head of the journalism department at New York University, just started a blog about journalism, called PressThink.
A J-school prof blogging is good news for blogging and for the news business. This means that he gets it, but I already knew that because NYU has been pioneering in the use of weblogs. Look at this list of student blogs. And this online student publication about blogs. And this ongoing student blog.
Now imagine what happens when these blogging students graduate and get jobs in big-media publications and ask their new bosses, “Well, why the hell can’t I blog?” And their new bosses say, “Because we need to copy-edit you.” And the bloggers laugh. And the bosses get embarrassed and feel old. And that, ladies and gentlemen, that is how blogging will enter the mainstream of media: when the next generation demands it. And then the bosses will discover that with blogs, they can find cheap content and piggyback on the content others create and still serve their readers and — here’s the punchline — save money, which is something they all desperately need to do.
So it’s good news that NYU blogs and that its journalism chair joins in.
