Traitorous thoughts

I did feel a bit the traitor last night at a meeting for bloggers.

I know, that's what I do now, but when I looked around the meeting room packed with people who provide content to newspapers and other outlets for free, I couldn't help remembering that I used to get paid for doing the same thing.

Well, OK, not quite the same thing. Reporting for newspapers - gathering facts, talking to people, writing it up in a direct, unbiased manner - is different from riffing in cyberspace.

Still, understanding that a quarter of all newspaper jobs have vanished in the last decade even though the public's appetite has never been stronger, gave me pause to be part of the group.

Two panel members, who are very skilled bloggers with relatively large audiences, work for a newspaper that gets a small portion of its revenue from ads on their web sites.

One of the other panel members actually makes a living from advertising he sells on a local blog while the other, like me, does it for a hobby.

The audience was full of enthusiastic amateurs who delight in the chance to express themselves and get feedback from readers, even if they don't know how many and even if it's only a few. We kept hearing that it's a whole new way to have a conversation.

But it is not yet a whole new way to make a living. Crunch time for blogging and on-line information in general is likely to happen in the next year or two, when newspapers start charging people to use their sites - maybe the last chance for them to stay in business.

As my mother used to say in another context, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Those days will likely be over soon for many web surfers.