Dave Winer is conducting a poll about weblogs and journalism. He asks, Will blogs wipe out the pros? I voted that there will always be pros, but I’d add this: there will be well-paid professional bloggers (well-paid for journalism, that is—there will be poorly paid professional bloggers, too, i.e., they’ll get paid the same as most journalists) at many varied publications. The practice will become routine.
Not just journos adopting some of the techniques of blogging (another choice on the survey), but journalists writing weblogs as a job.
The format is too powerful too ignore, and as more and more people get comfortable getting their news on the Web, the potential audience will make newspapers and other traditional media orgs pay attention. A full-time blogger with a hot beat --college basketball, the stock market, whatever -- would update a publication-branded weblog frequently throughout the day—that will mean lots of repeat traffic for the surrounding ad-space, too.
If the phone rang in five minutes I would judge a job offer from a publisher who wanted me to write a fulltime weblog by exactly the same criteria I’d judge an offer from a print pub or an online mag – with the weblog format a selling point for the job in terms of an interesting work environment.
I’ve said it before: Will Blog for Food. It's not just a slogan, it's a prediction.
11:32:22 AM 
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