Felix Salmon and Yves Smith discuss how bloggers are transforming the media landscape by presenting new perspectives and covering stories that go unreported in traditional outlets.
"We have a lot of big mouths here!" announced journalist and consultant Dean Rotbart, the moderator of a lively panel about how bloggers are changing public perceptions of the news we get from the mainstream media.
After his surprising opening (which was fully intended as a compliment), Rotbart asked how many audience members read blogs at least once per week. The answer was an impressive 75 percent. Of those that did, 50 percent read blogs once per day, and 15 percent were bloggers themselves. And that percentage is anticipated to grow substantially while the popularity of print media continues to decrease.
"Bloggers are informed and opinionated," stated Paul Kedrosky, who writes the "Infectious Greed" blog. "I needed more awareness politically. It makes me feel like I am contributing to society by enlightening the public to what is really going on with the economy. Not whatever they see in print media ... I combine both old and new developments in economics, things I couldn't say in a classroom. It lets me vent, primarily. And there are, in fact, many institutional investors that read it, believe it or not."
Yves Smith, who writes the "Naked Capitalism" blog, had ample experience on Wall Street with Goldman Sachs. She felt that there was a "real disconnect between what was being reported in the press with common sense." She stated that there "was a lot of frothiness in the market ... and the way the dots were connected were incomplete — the mortgage crisis, for example, was very 'snarkly.' In blogger language, that means unclear."
Felix Salmon of Portfolio.com felt that media needs to make things more fun to read in order to captivate and sustain an audience's attention. "Stuff bugged me," he said. "It is my own therapy. My wife told me to 'put it somewhere else, and find someone who cares.' My readership grew organically and developed into a quarter of a million readers per month."
Mark Thoma, author of the "Economist's View" blog, agreed with Smith. He felt that there "was a tremendous amount of information not getting put into print, due to source conflicts, space constraints, etc., and blogs allow for the total picture. This makes a story much (easier) to be whole and complete."
Rotbart posed another interesting question to the panelists: "Who holds bloggers accountable for what they put up?"
Most all the panelists agreed that credibility was extremely important for them, as well as integrity in what they wrote. "I put up articles that link to factual info to support where my opinions are based from," commented Thoma. Smith added that bloggers earn their respect by what they write, noting that even The Wall Street Journal relies on statements by trusted sources. Smith felt that "a blogger should be able to strip the arguer from the argument, and both should be able to stand on their own." Kedrosky believed that some blogs are purely for entertainment, while other may be "factual, impressionistic, etc., and that's okay." He added that blogs are complements to print, not substitutes.
When the subject of blogging for money came up, the crowd became a little rowdy. Salmon announced, "Blogging should come from the heart and mouth, not out of a lust for money. Bloggonomics 101: Never do it for the money." Rotbart noted that traffic is the monetary sum of blogging through ads.
Whether it's for the money or not, the panelists all had a lot to say about what was not being said before.
Global Conference 2013
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, philanthropist Bill Gates and Strive Masiyiwa of Econet Wireless discuss advancing prosperity in Africa.
