From the Newsstand

Save the Bloggers

By posted at 3:34 am on April 8, 2008 3

We all work very hard at The Millions. But writing about books, despite being, uh, serious business, is not necessarily life threatening. Blogging for the 24/7 news cycle is, apparently.

Sticking with journalism’s good-old “three is a trend” praxis and using three bloggers who suffered heart attacks, two of them fatal, the New York Times published a front-page story Sunday, highlighting the strains and risks of strenuous blogging for Web sites like TechCrunch, Gizmodo, and Gawker, among others.

I am beginning to suspect that the Gray Lady is attracted to this hot young thing. A month ago on Sunday the paper published a story about politicos blogging from DC. In what read like a oh-look-at-my-fabulous-blogging-life article, the Times described life in assorted “flophouses” where 20-somethings all cohabitated and blogged together, having parties on Super Tuesday to celebrate – and, of course, write about – the primaries. OK, there’s only one flophouse, but the assorted houses do exist.

And while DC bloggers help shape the political landscape, their Wall Street cousins are said to be moving markets, according to this academic study. Tip of the day: following financial blogs and short selling stocks accordingly may make you a quick buck – not a bad deal in this economy.

Alternatively, you can tune in to The Millions, where we shun heart attacks and continue to post at our leisurely – and hopefully satisfactory – pace.

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3 Responses to “Save the Bloggers”

  1. NewSunSEO
    at 9:55 am on April 8, 2008

    Interesting. All the bloggers who died were tech bloggers. Both Shaw and Orchant often wrote about VoIP and Malik wrote about telecoms.

  2. Lila
    at 11:12 am on April 8, 2008

    Great article! I also like the new Kareem Abdul Jabbar Blog: http://www.latimes.com/kareem
    He has been reviewing books as well.

  3. BM
    at 12:00 pm on April 14, 2008

    Hi Emre,

    I really liked your post and although it was a bit morbid, there is some irony in this story. Journalists have always suffered the strain of deadlines, but nothing was ever so fatal as this (of if it was, we would not know in real time through the internet, would we?) As it is, while more people are becoming adept to blogs and the visibility that one can get while blogging can even be turned into a career, competition becomes tougher and so it the pressure to succeed. Not that any of this is new, since the business world has always worked like this. But it was never this crazy. While the Internet is a fabulous tool for work and leisure (even better when they are mixed), we must learn to moderate ourselves as to not overuse it. Were these bloggers under pressure by their bosses or by themselves? In the end, it probably did not matter anyway. Another topic that I found interesting about your post was the "Flophouse". It just goes to show the power that this online journal can have. It makes writing much more available and reading even more. Thus, next time some agency decides to make a poll about the population's reading habits, they should ask what do people read online and how many hour a week they do so. True, most of the things online are not even worth mentioning. But there is also a lot of good things, things that otherwise would never have the chance to be published. So we, as readers should take advantage of that! And lets hope no more bloggers suffer any misfortunes in the future!

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