American Internet users have started some 3 to 9 million blogs, and about 600,000 personal web sites in the U.S. (many of them blogs) are updated several times daily. This compares to fewer than 1,500 daily newspapers. All this from a meaty summary by veteran journalist, professor and blogger Bob Stepno of the newly-released Pew Center report, "Content Creation Online." Stepno notes that while the numbers aren't stunning, AP's take that blogging is still infrequent needs re-consideration. He asks, infrequent compared to what? Not daily newspapering.

Of course, most serious bloggers couldn't exist without the print press. For all the legitimate criticism major daily papers get, they get an awful lot right, too. A healthy, free press is crucial to any democracy, and civil society. The blogosphere is in its infancy, and there are too many blogs - for my taste - that are trivial and self-absorbed. But many are excellent, and as their numbers grow, blogs will become less exotic and attract a growing percentage of news participants - or what used to be called readers, listeners and viewers.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at March 1, 2004 04:20 PM

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