In the Canadian blogosphere there are … 2? Maybe 2 examples of bloggers joining the mainstream media (MSM) – Raphael Alexander and Steve Janke – both co-opted by the National Post. There might be more. But those are the only ones I know of.
Were I a bored MSM reporter in late August – I suspect I’d see a trend. The Toronto Star’s David Olive saw one, and elaborated on it in one of the dumbest newspaper reports:
A funny thing happened on the way to blogosphere dominance of the global conversation. Many of the most prominent bloggers have hitched their wagons to the traditional mainstream media (MSM). Yes, the same MSM that bloggers, or Internet diarists, ceaselessly ridiculed as slaves to conventional wisdom.
If the struggle to “monetize” online readers is the chief priority of MSM proprietors from Rupert Murdoch to the Sulzberger family of The New York Times, venerable newspapers and TV networks are at least deriving some revenue from their online products, despite the current, unprecedented advertising drought.
Yet even the best-read bloggers, the ones who break news and whose analysis is of must-read value to specialized audiences, are in far more dire financial straits. And they are coming in from the cold.
So who are these needy Canadian bloggers who have so long scoffed at the MSM? According to the Star – Andrew Coyne, David Frum, and Mark Steyn. Andrew Coyne, former member of the Globe and Mail’s editorial board, former columnist for the National Post, current editor of Macleans and mainstay of MSM chat fests like the CBC’s regular ‘At Issue Panel’. David Frum, Bush administration speech writer, spawn of ‘the Journal’s’ Barbara Frum, and long time columnist for the National Post. And Mark Steyn, best selling author and columnist for – well, if it’s in English, he wrote for them. The last at least has some credible claim as a blogger. But the other two couldn’t be further from the caricature of the pajama-clad, MSM hating, political blogger.
Besides money, what could have tamed these wild-eyed renegades? Numbers – the massive numbers you get writing for a big Canadian MSM outfit:
It turns out that traditional media remain unrivalled in audience reach. More than anything, bloggers and other “opinionators” want a vast audience. But blogs reach their saturation point quickly, a big audience being 2,000 or so. There is little “stumble upon” factor in blogs – strangers who come across a website by accident and become fans. You won’t stumble across the website of prolific blogger Mark Steyn at the dentist’s office, as you will Chatelaine. Opinionators want to change the world, and only a tiny fraction of it is tuned in.
That phrase ‘unrivaled audience reach’ is dubious … I put a post up on this last year- comparing the relative traffic of blogs with the opinion pages of Canadian newspapers:
Interesting fact – 37% of Canadian newspaper readers read the editorials. If a political blog is like anything, it’s like the editorial section of a newspaper.
This blog gets an average of 564 hits per day – or 3,948 per week. Seeing as this is editorial only, that would be the equivalent of a newspaper with a readership of 10,670.
In other words, this blog gets more editorial readers, more politically engaged readers than the Flin Flon Reminder, or the Whitehorse Star. Hah!
Ok, I admit, that’s not that impressive. But I run an HR firm, not a newspaper, so I think it’s respectable for a hobby.
But some blogs out there are impressive. For example, Kate at SDA is Canada’s 36th largest newspaper, beating out Montreal’s Le Devoir.
Darcey at DustmyBroom beats out Fort McMurray Today and comes within a hair of overtaking Conrad Black’s first newspaper, the Sherbrooke Record.
It’s totally pointless time wasting, but what the hell – have a passably successful blog? Which newspaper’s ass do you kick?
Newspaper circulation numbers are here.
Outside of maybe the top 10 or 15 English Canadian dailies – it’s not all that hard to beat them out for traffic, influence and quality.
So, are Canadian bloggers being co-opted by the MSM for money and influence? We wish. 99% of us would sell out in a heartbeat. But I suspect that 99% of us also believe that it’s a racket and our ‘work’ isn’t deserving of the pay cheque.
In my mind, the criticism that I, and many other bloggers have for the MSM is not that they’re ’slaves to conventional wisdom’ (who isn’t?) it’s that what they do isn’t a real job. Excepting no more than a dozen reporters on your average mid-sized daily, there’s next to nothing on there you can’t get for free from a hobbyist blogger.
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FYI – Slate.com put this to the test recently – the MSM vs. the web. It’s an interesting debate, available as an MP3 here. [fyi - it's Parkinson's. When you hear the podcast, you'll know what I mean.]