The Huffington Post & the Future of Blogs: An Essay

On Sunday, the story broke that the liberal blog The Huffington Post, in collaboration with The Atlantic Philanthropies, has invested $1.75 million into the Huffington Post Investigative Fund. The fund will pay for a staff of 10 investigative reporters, who's material will be free for any website or publication to use, and will be published directly onto The Huffington Post. The new investigative team's first project will be to investigate the economy, The New York Times reported Sunday. The venture was made in the face of print media's rapid decline; with the mass layoffs of journalists and the folding of newspapers increasing, investigative journalism in this country has taken a serious hit. But does this mean that we will soon have to rely on alternative news media, such as blogs, to stay informed?

In this new century, people from all parts of the world are creating a human network of information and ideas—connecting almost instantly through technology. The Internet, television, and other digital media are fast replacing older mediums like print and paper. In respect to news sources here in the US, the future of print media indeed seems bleak as online blogs and cable news steal readers.
A major reason why the general public, and particularly the younger generation, rely on newer mediums to get news and information is because of convenience. People expect to get information practically instantly—faster than a newspapers’ ability to print new issues—and the speed with which cable news and the Internet disseminates information makes it seriously competitive with traditional newspapers. This has led the folding of some smaller publications, and the downsizing in others.

In fact, major papers like the New York Times, LA Times and etc. have taken steps to modernize and digitize their establishments—offering content from their papers and constantly updated information on their very own websites. Many traditional newspaper journalists have adapted to this new modern trend as well, becoming contributors to these websites and to online blogs—independent websites that cover political and other types of news, which is indicative of this new norm for how information is distributed. The growing number and popularity of online blogs is unquestionable.

During the last presidential election, blogs emerged as an intrinsic part of the political process, and a vehicle for the free expression of political thought and opinion. This is not to say that this method of spreading information is not without faults. The Internets’ freedom and lack of regulation is perhaps both its biggest strength and its greatest weakness: popular news blogs like the Daily Kos, the Drudge Report and others cater to their respective viewer bases through ‘spinning’: twisting the news to appeal to the reader’s personal and political views and biases. The intelligent blog reader should always approach information found in a blog with a grain of salt, and, in some cases, a whole shaker full.

In spite of this, the problem of bias in the Internet is combated by the fact that there is such a variety of information to be found on the online, and there are many reputable sources of information to be found when the right methods are applied. With the Internet, something read on a blog can be immediately compared with information from other sources, and some blogs do strive to provide balanced information, for the sake of integrity.

Whatever one’s opinion of the Internet as a news source may be, the modern trend of how the news is spread has only just begun, and has no way to go but forward.