What’s Gained and Lost as The Times Ends Many Blogs

[Commentary] When The Times launched its India Ink blog in September 2011, it noted that this was the paper’s “first-ever country-specific site for news, information, culture and conversation.” Now it’s gone.

These days, that kind of specificity is no longer the way The Times wants to direct its resources -- at least not in the form of a blog, and all that usually comes with it: embedded content, reverse-chronological order, curation of other source material and a personal or conversational tone.

“We want to continue this kind of journalism without the manufactured shell of a blog, with its constant pressure to fill it up,” said Ian Fisher, an assistant managing editor. That will happen, he said, through blog-style pieces that crop up when needed.

The Times recently decided to end The Lede, a pioneering effort that aggregated news content on major breaking stories. That, he said, “was getting increasingly incoherent” in its purpose and was “losing its value.” It was also taking a lot of staff hours to keep it going.

Andrew Beaujon of Poynter.org reported that the closing of The Lede was part of a bigger strategy that will end about half of The Times’s blogs. Fisher went a step further saying that The Times already has ended or merged about half of the 60 or so blogs that it had at the high point in 2012, and there may be about another 10 to go, although nothing is on the chopping block at this moment.

My take is this: For dedicated readers of individual blogs, there is no doubt a loss in this move. When you’re very interested in a single topic, it’s great to have a place that constantly aggregates news and commentary, adds new information and, in general, speaks to your passion.