The Old Boys' Blogging Club?

Posted on March 14, 2005

Well, I suppose you know that blogging has moved into the mainstream when Newsweek has a column alleging that the Blogosphere is really an old boys' club that is seriously lacking in diversity. Steven Levy writes:

At a recent Harvard conference on bloggers and the media, the most pungent statement came from cyberspace. Rebecca MacKinnon, writing about the conference as it happened, got a response on the "comments" space of her blog from someone concerned that if the voices of bloggers overwhelm those of traditional media, "we will throw out some of the best ... journalism of the 21st century." The comment was from Keith Jenkins, an African-American blogger who is also an editor at The Washington Post Magazine [a sister publication of Newsweek]. "It has taken 'mainstream media' a very long time to get to [the] point of inclusion," Jenkins wrote. "My fear is that the overwhelmingly white and male American blogosphere ... will return us to a day where the dialogue about issues was a predominantly white-only one."
Viewed one way, the issue seems a bit absurd. These self-generated personal Web sites are supposed to be the ultimate grass-roots phenomenon. The perks of alpha bloggers�voluminous traffic, links from other bigfeet, conference invitations, White House press passes�are, in theory, bequeathed by a market-driven merit system. The idea is that the smartest, the wittiest and the most industrious in finding good stuff will simply rise to the top, by virtue of a self-organizing selection process.

The issue seems to have struck a nerve, at least on CNN; they've already discussed Levy's column on "Inside Politics" today.

Levy isn't sure it's really an issue, but thinks its worth investigating and challenges bloggers to look for new voices to link to.