The Volokh Conspiracy - Which Are Better -- Blogs or the Traditional Media?

I've always been puzzled by this question, at least when asked at this level of generality. Let me offer some reasons.

1. Would we ask — which are better, books or magazines? Some books are better than some magazines, under most metrics of quality (accuracy, reliability, and the like). Some magazines are better than some books. It's pointless to compare one medium as a whole to the other. Each is too heterogeneous, ranging from utter shlock to very valuable stuff.

2. Ah, but can't we compare the average book against the average magazine, or the average blog to the average newspaper or TV program? Well, we practically can't — there are too many for us to meaningfully choose an average. And why would we want to? No-one reads the average book; the average book is probably boring, out-of-date, badly written, and not very accurate.

As Sturgeon's Law (or at least one version of it) puts it, "90% of everything is crud." The great thing about books is that we don't have to read the average book; we can read some of the best books in the field (especially with the help of reviewing mechanisms that tell us what's likely to be the best), and ignore the crud. Likewise for newspapers, or for blogs.

3. How about comparing the popular blogs to the popular newspapers? Again we'd fail. There are lots of popular blogs out there, some good and some bad; likewise for newspapers (the Weekly World News is a newspaper). What's the point of comparing one such mixed group against another? And when people avoid this by just selecting a particular subset, it's very easy to select whatever subset helps fit one's pet theories.

4. But surely on some things nearly every leading newspaper is better than nearly any blog — for instance, on original investigative journalism that involves many months of investigation. Uh, OK. But few blogs that I know of are trying to compete with newspapers on such stories. Most of the political blogs tend to provide opinion and news analysis. On this score, some are better than some newspapers, and some are worse than some newspapers.

5. Still, wouldn't you rather have only newspapers and no blogs than only blogs than no newspapers? But fortunately, that's not the choice, just as we don't need to choose between a world with books but without magazines and a world with magazines but without books.

A world in which we have both blogs and traditional media is better than a world that has only one or the other: It provides more viewpoints on many issues; it provides more coverage of a broader range of subject matters; it provides more checks and balances, in the form of some speakers critiquing others' work and pointing out errors in it.

The question, it seems to me, should be how blogs and newspapers — or, better yet, particular kinds of blogs and newspapers — can become more accurate, useful, and readable. A part of the answer, in fact, would be more criticism, criticism that has increased with the development of blogs. But in any event, such an inquiry is much more helpful than attempts to compare things that can't be compared or aren't worth comparing.

	[Eugene Volokh, May 18, 2005 at 7:08pm] Trackbacks Which Are Better -- Blogs or the Traditional Media? I've always been puzzled by this question, at least when asked at this level of generality. Let me offer some reasons. 1. Would we ask — which are better, books or magazines? Some books are better than some magazines, under most metrics of quality (accuracy, reliability, and the like). Some magazines are better than some books. It's pointless to compare one medium as a whole to the other. Each is too heterogeneous, ranging from utter shlock to very valuable stuff. 2. Ah, but can't we compare the average book against the average magazine, or the average blog to the average newspaper or TV program? Well, we practically can't — there are too many for us to meaningfully choose an average. And why would we want to? No-one reads the average book; the average book is probably boring, out-of-date, badly written, and not very accurate. As Sturgeon's Law (or at least one version of it) puts it, "90% of everything is crud." The great thing about books is that we don't have to read the average book; we can read some of the best books in the field (especially with the help of reviewing mechanisms that tell us what's likely to be the best), and ignore the crud. Likewise for newspapers, or for blogs. 3. How about comparing the popular blogs to the popular newspapers? Again we'd fail. There are lots of popular blogs out there, some good and some bad; likewise for newspapers (the Weekly World News is a newspaper). What's the point of comparing one such mixed group against another? And when people avoid this by just selecting a particular subset, it's very easy to select whatever subset helps fit one's pet theories. 4. But surely on some things nearly every leading newspaper is better than nearly any blog — for instance, on original investigative journalism that involves many months of investigation. Uh, OK. But few blogs that I know of are trying to compete with newspapers on such stories. Most of the political blogs tend to provide opinion and news analysis. On this score, some are better than some newspapers, and some are worse than some newspapers. 5. Still, wouldn't you rather have only newspapers and no blogs than only blogs than no newspapers? But fortunately, that's not the choice, just as we don't need to choose between a world with books but without magazines and a world with magazines but without books. A world in which we have both blogs and traditional media is better than a world that has only one or the other: It provides more viewpoints on many issues; it provides more coverage of a broader range of subject matters; it provides more checks and balances, in the form of some speakers critiquing others' work and pointing out errors in it. The question, it seems to me, should be how blogs and newspapers — or, better yet, particular kinds of blogs and newspapers — can become more accurate, useful, and readable. A part of the answer, in fact, would be more criticism, criticism that has increased with the development of blogs. But in any event, such an inquiry is much more helpful than attempts to compare things that can't be compared or aren't worth comparing.