Mainstream Blogs: The Good, the Bad, and NPR

It’s true that mediocre blogs plague the Internet. But I’m just talking about mainstream media blogs, here. The kind of blogs run by journalists from the Spokesman Review or the LA Times.

There’s two ways these blogs can fail: One, they suffer from being too much like their print edition, or they try to be too tongue and cheek, and fail to say anything worth reading. But in my search for the perfect news blog, I stumbled onto The NPR News Blog, by Tom Regan - that's National Public Radio. This blog combines the kind of interesting reporting that folks can find on NPR. And, I especially appreciate it because it tackles subjects that have been neglected by other mainstream media.

In a recent posting, the NPR News Blog discussed why the American-run Al Hurra satellite news station can’t measure up to competitors, like Al Jazeera. I didn’t even know the U.S. was providing this kind of satellite news station. That’s what I’m talking about here. I’m fed up with watching and listening to the same three news topics: the 2008 election, the war and Paris Hilton.

The NPR blog succeeds because it tackles these untouched issues. Also, it does so with the tact and freshness that accompanies most NPR reports. The language is neither too elitist, nor too snarky, and it provides links to the items it discusses. Lastly, I appreciate the standards that NPR has set up in regard to the news blog. Some of the rules include, no swearing, no plagiarism, “don’t use the comment section like that jerk talking to loudly on her cell phone on the bus,” and no conspiracy theories (to name a few).

To wrap things up here: the writing’s strong, the topics are interesting and there’s trust – what more could you ask?


Check out this link to NPR’s blog here