For me, the cheese does not stand alone

I am new to blogging so I am still feeling my way for another week or so, at which point I will declare myself an expert. You've got to move fast in the digital universe. Despite my newness, it's apparent to me that there are two ways consider this kind of blog a success:

1. I wrote something, I was productive, I put it out there, I expressed myself, and that's all that matters. The cheese stands alone.
2. Somebody's reading it.

Being innately a performer, I prefer an audience, so I'd have to say I need somebody reading this to close the loop for me. Just writing is not enough. If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it-well, who cares?
So all of that is preface to saying that I have my first link from someone else's blog. He was writing about the KFTY-TV "citizen journalism" concept that I pooh-poohed a couple weeks ago:

Not surprisingly, many people think this is a dumb idea squared, including the TV critic from the Miami Herald (not surprising perhaps), as well as this guy and this guy. I think citizen journalism is an interesting idea — but this is not citizen journalism, it’s just financial desperation. Not a great motivator.

Proudly, I am "this guy" number one there. I'm linked, therefore I am. I will return the favor by saying you can read the entire insightful piece by following the link to this guy. It's not surprising that a TV station would come up with the idea to co-opt a concept that was born on the web, that of users providing the content. And we should give these people some credit for doing something different at least. It follows the logic that has given us so much reality TV - cheap to produce, appealing to the average viewer, and advertisers go for it. The problem remains: if I am trying to get my video seen by a lot of people, what advantage is there in providing content to a TV station over providing it to YouTube? Who offers more potential viewers? The same logic applies to radio. Why would I want to produce a radio show now when I can just podcast? Traditional broadcasting and traditional newspapering will survive for a long time. There are some redeeming benefits to those media that the web doesn't provide. But surviving ain't thriving. Traditional TV viewership and newspaper readership are crashing. That doesn't mean people don't want to be entertained, or to know what's happening, they just want it on their own terms. Although it is not a newspaper in the traditional sense, the report that the world's oldest newspaper is no longer offering a printed version is kind of shocking. You don't have to be Nostradamus to predict more of the same to come...