Cuban Says Newspaper Bloggers are Worst Move for Newspaper Marketing
As usual, Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, wrote a thoughtful and well reasoned post on how bloggers are different from MSM. Also he makes another observation which I found interesting.
Newspaper blogging is probably the worst marketing and branding move a newspaper can make. The barriers to entry for bloggers are non existent. There are no editorial standards. There are no accuracy standards. We bloggers can and do write whatever we damn well please. Historically newspapers have set some level of standards that they strived to adhere to. By taking on the branding, standard and posting habits of the blogosphere, newspapers have worked their way down to the least common demoninator of publishing in what appears to be an effort to troll for page views.
I think the standards he is looking for would have to be instilled in the reporter doing the blogging through education and experience. Having standards is not something you get from your workplace or your boss.
BTW: the Mavs have always been very open - even before Cuban. My daughter was sports editor of a high school paper in Indiana and got an interview with Steve Alford when he was with the Mavs.
UPDATE:
A blog is a blog is a blog is a blog. The NY Times Blogs on their website are blogs. People who have blogs have a hard enough time coming up with a definition of what blog is. Potential or even current readers have no real idea of what the term blog reflect in terms of quality or content.