Why Blogs Are A Threat

It's the links.

Doc Searls sort of hits it on the head.

It's the giving of links that makes blogging so dangerous to journalism.  The room with the most exits wins by letting in the most light.

I found this to be the case in launching voic.us over the last few months. It's designed as a political super-site, but until it gets budgeted it's mostly me blogging about Georgia politics and the Georgia legislature.

I learned something early on. All the facts you need to do great coverage are there, through links.

• You can link to a current version of a bill each time you mention it.
• You can link to the campaign reports of any candidate.
• You can link to both blogs and news stories.

All these outbound links have value, enormous value. It's by sending traffic out that you get traffic in.

But, as I noted more recently, the state's journalism organizations explicitly reject this reality. They prefer to hide their content behind subscription firewalls. They seldom link out. They never once -- not once -- used the resources I just mentioned above.

They see readers as passive. They see their role as creating "content" to be "downloaded," not advocating and organizing their communities.

The key to winning on the Web is interacting. It lies in linking out to every resource available, no matter who holds it. It means turning each story into a conversation. It means looking for ways to make living in your community easier.

In the end, blogging's threat to journalism is an open source threat. Just as open source software threatens proprietary software. Just as open spectrum threatens the wireless monopolies. Just as network neutrality threatens the phone companies.

It is all of a piece.

Open source is not just a business model. It's not just a way to distribute software.

It's a political philosophy. And it's going to roll over everyone and everything that stands in its way. Because it works. It grows the economy, it adds to knowledge, it distributes knowledge, it makes those who use it more competitive.