shouting loudly

The News on Blog Readership: Some media frames just won’t go away

Harris interactive released a new poll on Monday, indicating that 22 percent of American adults regularly read political blogs, meaning several times a month or more.  This is an astonishing number, both for what it tells us about the impressive penetration of blogging into political life and for the pervasive negative framing that it receives from traditional media sources.

Reporting for Reuters, journalist Ellen Wulfhorst writes:

“Only 22 percent of people responding to the poll said they read blogs regularly … unlike traditional, mainstream media, blogs often adopt a specific point of view.  Critics complain they can contain unchecked facts, are poorly edited and use unreliable sources.  Despite the attention blogs can get, the poll said 56 percent of Americans say they never read blogs that discuss politics.  Another 23 percent read them several times a year, the survey showed.”

Here’s the problem with Wulfhorst’s reporting: Only 22 percent?  Let’s put that percentage in perspective:

In the 2004 presidential election, 121 million American adults cast a ballot for one of the two major-party candidates.  This was out of a total voting-age populace of 221 million.  That’s roughly 54.7% of all American adults.  So 45.3% of Americans don’t vote in our highest-profile elections, based on 2004 figures.  Let’s go ahead and assume for a moment that, by and large, the people who are so disinterested that they don’t bother to vote on election day are likewise people who aren’t going to turn to blogs for political information.  With that one, tiny piece of contextual information, the Harris poll findings look a whole lot more impressive.

56 percent of Americans never read political blogs, but 45.3% of Americans also don’t vote.  That means, out of the remaining population who actually engage in the most basic form of politics, 40.2% regularly read political blogs, 42% infrequently read political blogs, and 17.8% never read political blogs.  Among actual voters, regular blog readers outnumber non-blog readers by better than a two-to-one margin.  That’s shockingly high penetration for a medium in its infancy just a few years ago.

Wulfhorst reiterates the standard mainstream media critique of political blogging: bloggers have no credentials.  They could say anything, so how can we trust them?  They’re no substitute for supposedly “objective” journalism.

There are a couple of problems with this tired, worn-out criticism.  First, the median blogger has basically no audience.  Anyone can blog, but the overwhelming majority of blogs are only read by the author’s personal acquaintances.  This is the functional equivalent of discussing politics over beers at the local watering hole.  Anyone can say anything they want, but no one pretends to be a journalist anyway.  Blogs let this conversation happen asynchronously and across geographic boundaries.  I can listen to my old college buddies talk about the candidates, and can do so on my own schedule.

The median blog isn’t what 40.2% of voters are turning to for political information, though.  They’re turning to the hub sites, places like Huffington Post, DailyKos, or Michelle Malkin.  These elite blogs provide high-quality writing and analysis while being clear about their political leanings.  They have to, if they want to attract an audience.  If Glenn Greenwald wants to hold his audience’s attention, he’d better do a good job of editing and he’d better check his sources.  Unlike print journalists, if he gets his facts wrong, he can expect to hear about it in his comments section.  And unlike Fox News, Greenwald admits his bias up front rather than hiding behind claims of objectivity.

The mainstream media has spent the past five years alternately being terrified of bloggers and trying to write off their importance.  Wulfhorst’s piece is just the latest in what promises to be an enduring line of attack against the new medium.  The reality of what’s happening here is far more complex.  As Michael Schudson demonstrates in his book, “The Good Citizen,” most Americans have never been particularly engaged in American politics.  Today, the vast majority who do choose to engage in politics turn to blogs for some portion of their political information diet.  They aren’t choosing the factually questionable or poorly-written blogs, though.  Bad bloggers who don’t check their facts and are poorly edited end up writing for nonexistent audiences.  Good ones have a more active, responsive audience than print journalists, and they have to do an excellent job of vetting arguments and providing meaningful analysis of complicated issues, or else the audience will migrate elsewhere.  They actually have to deal with clearer market imperatives than traditional journalists employed by Reuters.

Let’s put this meme to bed already.  Blogs have surged onto the scene.  Most Americans don’t read political blogs, but that is predominantly because nearly half of Americans don’t follow politics.  Major media outlets have added bloggers to their roster of news offerings, and they have done so because the technology of blogging offers a faster dissemination of information and greater interactivity with an actively engaged audience.  The bloggers with an audience provide an excellent product, and the sheer number of American’s now turning to these blogs for news, analysis, and discussion is nothing short of astonishing.