Below are just a few(!) of the blogs that are listed on washingtonpost.com’s Blog Directory. In my opinion, there are way too many. No one could possibly follow this many blogs overall, not to mention just from one Web site. What’s more, their names do little to help readers differentiate and make good choices about what they want to read with their limited time. For instance, in the Politics section alone there’s The Fix, The Sleuth, The Talk and The Trail. Those all sound the same to me! However, they are all traditional areas of coverage for mainstream newspapers, and while producing them is certainly a lot of work, they are not totally beyond the realm of the newspaper’s coverage.
Take a look, though, at some of these names and descriptions. When was the last time you saw these topics covered in-depth in the print edition of the Washington Post?
PostRock: J. Freedom du Lac and and David Malitz riff on the world of popular (and unpopular) music.
Channel This: Writers for The Post’s Style section recap their favorite TV shows.
Offbeat: Emil Steiner on real, strange news.
Under God: Claire Hoffman takes a daily look at what we do in the name of God.
On The Plane: Post reporters file dispatches as they travel overseas with the president and other officials.
I wonder: do these topics really better lend themselves to online coverage, and that’s why they deserve space online but not in print? Or is the Post desparately trying to drive page views by blogging about whatever is left over in their notebooks?
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