Blogger Feels Pressure to Blog About Rita

Posted on September 25, 2005

ZDNet has a new article about blogger Brendan Loy who received a lot of web traffic for his coverage of Hurricane Katrina. The article says that Loy has also received a lot of new traffic looking for information about Hurricane Rita. Loy, a 23-year-old law student, told ZDNet that the pressure to blog about Rita is "definitely taking a toll."

"I try to keep reminding myself that I don't have to post stuff to my blog. It's my hobby. It doesn't have to take over my life," said Loy, who lives in South Bend, Ind.
The pressure to produce isn't unique to Loy. It's the plight of many popular bloggers, said Dan Gillmor, a San Francisco Bay Area blogger with a focus on media and technology.
"Blogs are hungry beasts that want to be fed," he said. "Readers should realize, however, that bloggers do have lives outside their computers and cut them some slack -- especially the ones who do it for no financial compensation."
Knowing that his new audience is hungry for Rita coverage, Loy has recruited some guest weather bloggers to help him out. "I don't want to lose the new readers. Web traffic is a fickle thing," he said. "But there's no way I can blog Rita like I blogged Katrina."

Loy is not alone. There are tens of thousands of bloggers covering each storm. However, many of these bloggers are probably not feeling the pressure to keep posts and traffic up like Brendan Loy is.