Anyone find that their blog reading is going down? I for a while now have found myself scanning maybe four sites a day, and really finding very little worth reading. Like gossip reporting, it has its place, but it is all so ephemeral and vapid too. A large part of the problem is, I just don't care about the opinions of most people who write these things, and want information -- high-value, hard-to-get, not-speculative, real information -- not their opinion, which they are often with some exceptions not in the business to offer. Curious if others find themselves making the same migration away from it all. As for what I'm still doing here, good question. I have basically found myself turning the site over the past couple years into a small but well read platform to promote interesting articles on national security story lines I and I expect most of my audience are closely following, articles that significantly advance what we know, or think we know, and frankly to promote my own reporting published by other places, where I really try to get the kind of hard-won information I would like to read. As for opinion, I'll take investigative intelligence and reporting tenacy over it any day. Expect I'm not the only one who's found their reading habits have significantly changed. As for what such a possible shaking out portends for my beleaguered industry, I have no idea.

Posted by Laura at February 1, 2008 10:14 PM