Over the past months, I've heard several journalists make the same comment at various industry forums: That blogs are a "parasitic" medium that wouldn't be able to exist without the reporting done at newspapers.

I hear the frustration behind the comment. You bust your rear to get stories in the paper, then watch bloggers grab traffic talking about your work. All the while your bosses are laying off other reporters, citing circulation declines, as analysts talk about newspapers losing audience to the Web. It's not hard to understand why many newspaper journalists would come to view blogs as parasites, sucking the life from their newsrooms.

Still, the charge riles me every time I hear it. To me, it's a poorly informed insult of many hard-working Web publishers who are doing fresh, informative and original work. And by dismissing blogs as "parasitic," newspaper journalists make themselves blind to the opportunities that blogging, as well as independent Web publishing in general, offer to both the newspaper industry and newspaper journalists.

I wanted to hear what other Web professionals I respect thought. So I e-mailed several bloggers, academics and newspaper editors. No one who I've heard make the charge responded. But others replied with insightful remarks.

"People who say blogs are 'parasitic' are referring, really, to only a subset of blogs -- those that refer to, and comment on, matters of public interest that are typically covered by mainstream media," Rich Gordon, Associate Professor and Director of Digital Technology in Education at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, responded.

"There are many, many blogs that address topics that aren't covered by mainstream media at all. Those who write these blogs do original reporting, at least based on what they see around them. So even to the degree this criticism has a basis in fact, it refers only to a fraction of all blogs."

Let's not forget, either, that even "parasitic" blogs provide value beyond the original news reports they cite. Blogs animate the news for readers that newspapers alone don't always reach.

"I find some of these parasitic-ish blogs particularly useful - because they spotlight things I might miss," wrote Columbia Graduate School of Journalism Professor Sree Sreenivasan. "A great example is Romenesko. It's my first visit every day. Lots of old-school journos, who don't like blogs, read it religiously, without knowing it's a blog!"

Gordon reminded that bloggers are not alone in referencing reporter's work.

"There is a long tradition *within journalism* of publishing and broadcasting the work of people whose primary contribution to discourse is opinion and analysis. Bloggers fall squarely within this tradition. They are parasitic only if your definition of journalism consists only of original reporting."

Lisa Stone, co-founder of BlogHer.org, made that point even more bluntly.

"Baloney," she wrote in response to my question. "An opinion editorialist doesn't have to break news herself to provide amazing, fresh perspective on world events -- whether she's published on the New York Times Op-Ed page or on her own blog. Sounds like these folks are less interested in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the public discourse upon which American democracy is based than they are with Machiavellian divine right."

Neil Budde, Vice President and Editor in Chief of Yahoo! News, wrote that newspapers' own websites and partners could have been called parasites, at least by one definition of the term.

"In my days at WSJ.com, I'm sure some in the print newsroom considered us parasites. Now working for a search engine/portal like Yahoo!, I wouldn't be surprised to hear this definition attached to our role. But at Yahoo! News we're working with publishers and broadcasters to ensure that we co-exist over a prolonged period of time with them and that their lifetime is not shortened by it."

Original reporting

"Many blogs exist without ever quoting or referring to other news items and contain original content," Brett Tabke, editor of Webmaster World wrote. "There is such a wide range of blog types today; such an all encompassing statement is suspect."

"Most bloggers started blogging because they had something to say," Gordon wrote. "They would not go mute just because there was less MSM [mainstream media] content available."

Cory Doctorow, co-editor of BoingBoing, agreed.

"If MSM didn't exist, we'd just invent 'em (as metrobloggers have done) -- we'd go out and take pictures and write about stuff as it happened.

"That's already happening with governmental material -- I can summarize C-SPAN just as well as NBC's hacks."

Stone cited examples of independent websites that provide original reporting.

"If anyone is looking for sites where bloggers use blogs to break news, I recommend Global Voices Online, Sunlight Foundation and BlogHer."

Finally, Gordon suggested that blogs actually bring readers and income to newspaper and TV websites:

"If you're associated with [traditional media] and think bloggers are parasitic, let me suggest you check your site's metrics system to see how much traffic comes your way now because of blog links. If the number is low, you have nothing to worry about. If it's high, your site is earning income because of these parasites. The relevant scientific term is (or, at least, should be) 'symbiotic,' not "parasitic.'"

I like Gordon's reference to referrer logs, but for another reason. Too often, newspaper journalists' familiarity with blogs and other independent websites extend only to those sites that link to their work. Of course, then, those journalists would believe blogs to be parasitic.

But, as Gordon wrote before, there exist thousands of blogs and websites devoted to topics that so-called "mainstream" media fails to cover. By dismissing all blogs as derivative of their own coverage, newspaper journalists reaffirm the cultural myopia that has caused them to miss issues and passions that are of deeply felt interest to so many former, or potential, newspaper readers.

That's why the "parasite" charge bothers me so much. It perpetuates a bad attitude toward readers that led so many of those readers to the blogosphere in the first place. If some blogs are parasitic, sucking value from others' work and offering little insight or knowledge in return, so too are many newspaper columnists, editorial pages and television talking heads.

Instead of dismissing the blogs and websites to which their former readers and viewers are flocking, newspaper and TV journalists ought to be asking themselves what those blogs are doing that *they* could be doing to get those readers back.

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070301niles/