Forbes Publisher: Blogs Threaten Mainstream Media

Posted on December 8, 2005

Rich Karlgaard, the publisher of Forbes magazine who recently started a blog on Forbes.com called Digital Rules: The Blog, has an interesting post which provides his thoughts on blogging so far.

Karlgaard explains why blogging is not overhyped and why you should not judge blogs by the "average" blog. The "average" blog theory sounds similar to the feeds that matter concept. But the most intriguing part of the blog post -- especially coming from the publisher of Forbes -- is where Karlgaard says that blogs do threaten the mainstream media and that he also disagrees with the Forbes "Attack of the Blogs" article.

Blogs really do threaten the mainstream media. Thought experiment: Suppose you call yourself a pro-technology supply-sider. (That's what I happen to be, because I think Moore's Law and Say's Law drive growth and prosperity in the world.) A reader with such an outlook will find a home at RealClear Politics and Tech Central Station because the editors of those uberblogs see the world in the same way. You might ask, "Well, doesn't the Wall Street Journal see the world likewise?" Yeah, mostly. But the WSJ needs thousands of employees and tons of ink and paper to produce its product. RealClear Politics gets by with fewer than ten employees.

Are blogs good or bad for business? I recently argued this point with Forbes Managing Editor Dennis Kneale on our television show, Forbes on Fox. Dennis had edited the Forbes Nov. 14 cover story, "Attack of the Blogs," by Daniel Lyons. This story recounted the damage that some nasty bloggers, hiding in the weeds like assassins, had done to businesses and people. Dennis was proud of this story, and properly so. It was well reported and snappily written. But I took issue with it, saying that good companies and honest businesspeople have little to fear from bloggers. When companies and people do the right thing, the majority of bloggers will write good things about them.

Karlgaard also revealed that he gets up real early to blog -- 4:30 in the morning. But he's on the West Coast so he doesn't have much choice. Karlgaard also appears to be blogging from the future. The date on his blog post is 12-26-05.