Bailout for Journalists

Six Apart, an online media company in the business of aiding bloggers, has offered up what it calls "The TypePad Journalist Bailout Program" or "TypePad for Journalists."

The creators are offering what they see as a tool for journalists to bypass traditional media outlets and report the news on their own, independently. TypePad is a blogging software that Six Apart is offering as part of a membership that includes education on blogging and promotion on sites such as blogs.com.

The move, as explained by Six Apart, is part philanthropic and part entrepreneurial, trying to address the problems and concerns of journalists as they deal with the evolution of journalism. Six Apart wants to help journalists "take control of their own presence online." I read this as "become their own one-man (or woman) newspaper."

This makes sense! A large newspaper is less feasibly run on ad revenue than a single blogger would be. A blogger-journalist could have the resources necessary to pursue and report the news; some bloggers make several hundred thousand dollars a year in ad revenue for their blogs. A wise newspaper could ditch the newsroom altogether, employing a coalition of blogger-journalists with the same standards of a newspaper without the rigid demands of running a paper.

The moral of the story? Just because you don't work for a newspaper doesn't mean you can't be a journalist. The industry may evolve beyond all recognition, but the trade will live on.