Skip to main content.
« Previous entry: Secret art | Main page | Next entry: Firefox not responding »

November 25th, 2005

Are blogs bad for cartoonists?

I came across this article in the Gwinnett Daily Post, a newspaper that I must confess seldom receives attention in these blog pages.

The report talks about the decline of newspapers in America and why, even in the age of the blog newspapers are still vital:

A so-called “victory” for the blogosphere vis-a-vis declining newspaper readership is very much a defeat for the freedoms we take for granted.
Newspapers serve their communities in ways that can’t be replicated by bloggers —noble-spirited, smart and entertaining as many often are —or by anyone else. They not only help define a given community, but also serve as both government watchdog and information conduit. They have the resources to investigate, to report, to inform as no other entity can, does or will.

I suspect that the wider availability of newspapers online and 24 hour TV news channels is a far greater influence on the decline of the newspaper than bloggers. But in any case, whether bloggers are to blame or not it is the newspaper cartoonist who suffers:

The decision to eliminate the in-house cartoonist symbolizes a lack of understanding among those who hold the purse strings about what’s needed to save newspapers. Cartoon and column space can be filled with syndicated material, but the human quality is diminished when a paper’s own in-house voices are lost to the cost-cutting void.

Very true. But all the more reason for cartoonists to look for new ways to sell their work. I like to think that the blog is one of them.

3 Comments »



Share this on Facebook:

If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy these (possibly) related articles:

If you liked this post why not send it to someone else by e-mail? Click here to do so.

This is a single post on the Cartoon Blog by Dave posted on Friday, November 25th, 2005 at 3:14 pm. Click here to read all of the latest posts. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Other things technologically advanced people may like to do: trackback from another site, follow responses via the comments feed, bookmark on del.icio.us or digg.

3 Responses to “Are blogs bad for cartoonists?”


  1. Ed Stych says:

    You’re right … we ALL have to look for new ways to market our work as the world changes around us. I’m a recovering journalist (worked for 10 years for the AP in a few large U.S. cities) and have spent the last 10 years as the CEO of a printing company. Printing is just one more industry drastically affected by the Internet and new technology. If our company is going to thrive in the next 10 years, we also need to find new ways to sell our work.

    The writer of the Gwinnett article is being nostalgic. She’s passionate about her profession. Good for her. I just hope she figures out soon that newspapers aren’t going away … they’re just changing. I’m 44 years old. Most of the people who work for me who are younger than 30 get all of their news from just about anywhere EXCEPT the newspaper. They love the Internet. So do I … although I believe the newspaper is the easiest and fastest way to find all of the information you want.

    One more comment about the Gwinnett article: She said that newspapers serve as a government watchdog. I believe bloggers do an even better job at that. Many of them have more time and more expertise to devote to very narrow niches than the general assignment reporters that fill newspapers.

    November 27th, 2005 at 7:04 am
  2. Steppenwolf says:

    I wish Ed had mentioned in what way “newspapers aren’t going away – they’re just changing”, unless he meant to say that bloggers are the new newspapers. If the newspaper reading market begins at the now 40-some year olds and everybody younger won’t read the papers, not even on the Net, then they will dwindle to nothing over the years. While some blogs are a wonderful reprieve in an age of chilled journalists and collaborating corporate media acting as governmental and big business propaganda outlets, I can’t help but agree that the press has (or used to have?) more investigative training and resources than bloggers will ever have; and – even though at the moment the medal of courage to speak up goes to bloggers – when push comes to shove a blogger who can’t count on freedon of the press protection and doesn’t have a news company with defense lawyers behind him or her, and may not even be missed by anyone who knows him personally when he disappears, is probably going to be less likely to blow the whistle on a dissident-eliminating government, corporation, or mob. Blogs also form an amorphous, semi-invisible and ever-changing mass of virtual reality, wide open to manipulation, hacking, identity theft, overlooked (in the crowd) postings, and sponsored disinformation. In conclusion, blogs – for all the merits of some of them – won’t become the new incarnation and replacement of newspapers. TV news will continue to lack space for in-depth reporting, and will probably also continue to be run by a very few mega corporations with vested interest in manipulating public information, up to and not excluding the results of presidential elections. Radio shares many of the problems of all these types of media. We must hope that the press will manage to survive, possibly in paperless form, and re-capture some of the market gone to other media. I just wish I knew how. Maybe they will merge with the bloggersphere, and affordable hand-held Internet accessing newsreaders will come along. Talk or news radio is already moving into those silly e-tunes environments, if I have heard correctly. Perhaps the equivalent for print will occur. So far, however, the market of media mass access via the Internet has favored the distribution (legally or illegally) of commercial products like big-market pop music, rather than less entertainment industry driven content. Does anybody see a light at the end of the tunnel that I have missed or which is less hypothetical?

    December 7th, 2005 at 5:31 pm
  3. Ed Stych says:

    A good example of how newspapers are changing — and how they need to change if they’re going to survive — is my hometown paper of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The “Strib” has embraced blogging more than most papers. Some of their reporters now “blog,” updating stories on the Internet on the fly. Plus, the hard copy version of the paper uses a full half page each day to list blogs and other Internet sites of interest … usually on a specific topic for each day.

    In response to the fear that “corporate media (are) acting as governmental and big business propaganda outlets,” I would simply say it has always been that way. I could start with the names of yellow journalists Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst and go on for quite a while. And in response to the fear that blogs are filled with sponsored disinformation, etc.: How are newspapers or other so-called mainstream media different? The fact is, both newspapers and blogs are run being human beings, and every one of them is capable of failing in journalistic ethics.

    My bottom line is that the more speech there is, the more free we are. That’s why I love blogs. It’s cheap media, allowing anyone to put their “facts” and opinions out there for the public to consider. That’s better than a handful of people at places like the New York Times or CBS deciding what THEY think is news on a particular day. I worked for the “mainstream media” for 10 years. I know that they simply follow each other.

    I love my hard copy newspaper. My wife and I tried giving up the Strib for a couple of months, but missed it too much. A newspaper is the fastest way to get the most amount of information. But it’s still not satisfying, because I know the Strib has a certain political bent, and I know they can’t cover everything that I’m interested in, and I know they can’t get deep enough into subjects I want more information on. So I still spend a good amount of time reading bloggers who are experts in their fields. But I’m 44. There are lots of people in the generations behind me who aren’t going to give newspapers a chance … unless they change to become MORE like blogs in diversity and depth.

    I do see a light at the end of the tunnel. In that light I see, for instance, the opportunity to read several political cartoonists on one Internet site, giving me a varity of takes on the same subject, instead of the one, tired political cartoonist who works for the Strib.

    December 12th, 2005 at 4:10 am