Pink is the New Colonial Blog

If Thomas Paine were to write “Common Sense” for the year 2007, several thoughts might come to mind. What war are Americans looking to mobilize for? What do Americans think of the current government? What sense of liberty do Americans hold?

Journalism is one of the greatest forms of liberty out there. Free media is an outlet to voice opinions about thoughts, and receive feedback in a public setting.

Dan Gilmor notes that personal journalism didn’t die with the muckrakers. The work of Stephens, Riis and Tarbell to enlighten society on microcosms of dysfunction from urban tenement life to oil blunders left a stamp of progressive action.

But do the blogs we read today leave the same trail of progressive motion that the pamphlets of the 18th century? There are news blogs out there, such as Evanston native Jim Romenesko’s guide to top stories in journalism.

Then there are the blogs on the growing topics that captivate the minds of soft news readers daily. For celebrity gossip hoards, there is “Pink is the New Blog.” For those who can’t stand reading the same Associated Press story on steroid use in major league baseball in 50 newspapers, Deadspin is a viable alternative.

By no means do I believe that hard news doesn’t exist. But when drawing a timeline from Thomas Paine to George W. Bush, the largest change that has taken place is what defines captivating news.

Just look at street corners in the greater Chicago area. The Tribune and Sun-Times sit in locked bins, requiring the ever so pricey 50 cents to purchase a copy. The Red Eye bins are often empty by 12 o’clock noon on campus.

Is there really any problem with this? Digesting thirty pages rather than butchering six sections sounds appealing. As Gilmor points to, one job of newspapers is to provoke public opinion. From their inception to the present, this still holds true, even with the Red Eye.

Size and price aside, the corporate era of journalism plays as large an impact as the shifting interests of readers’ news topics.

Companies like Gannett and the Tribune Company have a large stake in the newspaper business today. But when WGN faces off with the Tribune in a battle of resources, where will those assets go?

Gilmor cites corporatization of journalism as inevitable because of the consolidation of industries, disintegration of family enterprises and alterations to the rules of American capitalism.

He leaves out the aspect that effects most changes in public opinion: source of consumption. With the presence of technology lurking in the background, who would’ve predicted that Northwestern students consume television news via computer? Likewise, there was no telling that the crashing of an Internet network would cause more outcry than the stories displayed on news websites.

If Thomas Paine were to write this pamphlet today, he’d likely find Gilmor's assertion that the collective attention span of news consumers has shortened significantly. But most importantly, it is highly unlikely that the stories demanding coverage tomorrow will suffer from the marginalization that plagues news today.