The Atlanta Journal Constitution has them.
But are they weblogs? In the true sense of what that word has come to mean?
What has it come to mean? Here's part of what wikipedia says:
A weblog, or simply a blog, is a web application which contains periodic, reverse chronologically ordered posts on a common webpage. Such a web site would typically be accessible to any Internet user.
The full wiki article on blogs can be found here.
That definition doesn't necessarily answer my question. I guess I'm not clear on the definition still - in my mind it's one thing, however the AJC and CNN blogs - and that's just two examples of media outlets sponsoring weblogs - seem to indicate it's another.
There was a joke made in the press during the faked documents debacle at CBS that the bloggers who assisted in blowing the thing wide open were a 'bunch of guys in pajamas' who couldn't be taken seriously. Then I start noticing news outlets like the ones above have their reporters writing in blogs. If you read the CNN blog I linked it truly is a kind of bloggy format, with Miles O'Brien making short little notes over the course of a morning.
The review of the production of Carmen that I was recently part of is on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Critic's Blog. It is definitely set up in classic weblog format, with generous room for reader comments. When I found that my initial reaction was surprise, and I was pleased. Pleased that people could comment, that something like an arts review was put into a form that made it open for public discussion. Seems fair, to me.
Then I started noticing how many other places now have blogs. And I ask you, are these truly blogs? Miles O' Brien sure ain't a dude in pajamas out there bird-dogging Spaceship One. I seriously doubt Pierre Ruhe, the critic who panned Carmen, was blogging from home in his satin Pierre Cardin (with 'Cardin' scratched out and 'Ruhe' written above it in laundry pen on the tag,) pajamas, pipe in hand.
I am also sure these guys didn't scramble to find a host, pay the hosting fee out of pocket, tear their hair out installing the publishing software, and have to put up with comment spam once they were done.
Article comments
1 - Hope
Hi, Steve. Interesting discussion. I don't know that I would agree with:
"reverse chronologically ordered" necessarily. The order would be the blogger’s prerogative.
But the statement "...would typically be accessible to any Internet user" seems quite right. I just have been visiting the sites of such print publications as The New Republic, The London Review of Books, The National Review, The New Criterion, The Hudson Review, and The Weekly Standard. It is a tremendous bother to get into those even if one is a subscriber. I have to register just to see if there is a place on which I could post a comment and thereby shamelessly plug my own site. Registering entails rummaging for a print copy of the magazine, deciphering the gobbledygook on the mailing label, possibly reading a privacy policy and terms of use and all that folderol. Give me a cheapie blog! Pure heaven by comparison.
No doubt the print mags justifiably want to prevent me from peddling my own wares on their bulletin boards, but they are simultaneously discouraging me from ever visiting their sites again and leaving me with qualms about renewing my print subscriptions.
The print magazines had better get with it. They really could be replaced by well-run blogs in a few years (although the old line media companies probably scoff at that, given the way the online news services of the first dotcom wave vaporized or were acquired by the giants).
I think you're quite correct that the ability to comment (and to do so immediately, as I found I could do, with Eric’s help, on my first visit to this site) is part of the huge appeal of blogs. Who wants to go the hassle of registering with a dozen different periodical Web sites to in order to determine that they might then just possibly be able to comment on something they have read in that publication? Life is too short for that sort of rigmarole.
I have only just entered the world of blogs myself (starting last week with my own humor blog-"warned you I was a shamelsss hussy), so your article raised some timely questions for me and, no doubt, for others who were astonished and galvanized by the bludgeoning of CBS by the bloggers.
Hope
http://humorhangout.blogspot.com/
2 - Eric Olsen
Although I do a blog for Cleveland.com, I agree that those hosted by major media outlets are something different. I'm not sure what yet, but not a blog in the most important sense, lacking to true independence to do whatever the hell one wants constrained only by your relationship with your readership.
3 - mike hollihan
The Memphis daily, the Commercial Appeal, has about eight blogs. About half are dead or dormant, their authors concentrating on their print writing instead. One has a community of sorts built up; another posts very regularly and seems to "get" blogging; a third posts irregularly but is firmly of the blogging mindset.
The one regular blogger, the food critic, pretty clearly uses her blog as a tool for generating tips and material for her print columns. The political blogger only used his blog for dumping excess stories that didn't make the print edition.
The CA gets points for trying, but the execution is really painful to see. There's pretty much no reason to read them.
4 - Steve Huff
I'm adding a link to a very good blogger who just tonight wrote an entry on the same subject. I think she's dead on target - you'll see why when you go there;
http://www.suburbanblight.net/archives/002086.html
Enjoy.