FFWD: The rise of political blogs - by Trevor Howell

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The rise of political blogs - by Trevor Howell

The pay is terrible. Ideas, no matter how well thought out and crafted, may only draw a readership that can be measured by the dozen. Politicians threaten lawsuits if you outsmart them. In short, even as a hobby, writing a blog isn’t the most prestigious gig.

Blogs, or weblogs, have come a long way since their mid-’90s inception. Back then, they were primarily viewed as online diaries. By the early part of this century, they evolved into effective tools where one could espouse their views and report on issues mainstream media were missing. David Climenhaga, a journalist and self-described unsophisticated blogger, contends incredibly bad management on the part of people who run newspapers is as much to blame as the failing economic model. “I tend to feel that newspaper management drove their core readership onto the Internet rather than people were abandoning newspapers for the Internet willingly,” he says.