Wonk Bloggers and the Vanishing Voices of Workers

[salvorhardin]

At a time when many seasoned reporters are being laid off by publications—like four veteran writers and editors who were laid off in August a few months before Yglesias was hired at Slate—mainstream news publications are turning to wonky bloggers like Ygelsias and fellow Brat Packer Ezra Klein (of The Washington Post) to turn out massive amounts of content and generate traffic. These bloggers can turn out 6-12 posts a day while traditional reporters, who take the time to go out in the field and interview people affected by the subject of their stories, can typically only turn out 3-4 stories a week. The result is that workers' voices are often excluded in the rush to produce quick blog content.

Full post: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12521/wonk_bloggers_and_the_vanishing_voices_of_workers

Excellent point about new media tyros aka bloggers hastening the downsizing of traditional reporting, and quite true, although I don't think preserving traditional reporters/journalists is any guarantee of coverage of lower economic class perspectives. After all, I can't recall the voice of the worker being featured with any regularity in the papers since Reagan destroyed PATCO.

Plus there are tons of bloggers out there who do insightful analysis from a working class perspective. The fact that Slate and WaPo choose to hire people like Yglessias or Klein instead says more about the inside-the-beltway neoliberal class privilege of the people who make hiring decisions at media outlets than it does about the terrible transition from dead tree to digital.

[salvorhardin]

1. Kick

I might disagree with Mike Elk's premise that traditional reporters cover labor issues better, but it's an excellent deconstruction of the role of neoliberal bloggers in the media.

[Zalatix]

2. Quantity over quality.. this will bite them in the ass.

[salvorhardin]

3. Ayup

And both Klein and Yglesias churn out some mind-numbingly dumb posts.