Blogs: uma "banda do cidadão"? Numa entrevista à Online Journalism Review, John Markoff, que cobre a área de tecnologia e computadores para o The New York Times desde 1988, refere não ser ainda capaz de afirmar que os weblogs sejam mais do que aquilo que foi, no campo radiofónico, a "banda do cidadão". A entrevista toda ela é um documento precioso. Particularmente sobre a tendência para um cada vez maior número de actores aparecer a produzir e editar conteúdos, nomeadamente através dos blogs, Markoff revela grande prudência, se não mesmo cepticismo: "Well, I'm of two minds. I certainly can see that scenario, where all these new technologies may only be good enough to destroy all the old standards but not create something better to replace them with. I think that's certainly one scenario. The other possibility right now -- it sometimes seems we have a world full of bloggers and that blogging is the future of journalism, or at least that's what the bloggers argue, and to my mind, it's not clear yet whether blogging is anything more than CB radio.And, you know, give it five or 10 years and see if any institutions emerge out of it. It's possible that in the end there may be some small subset of people who find a livelihood out of it and that the rest of the people will find that, you know, keeping their diaries online is not the most useful thing to with their time.When I tell that to people … they get very angry with me. ... I also like to tell them, when they (ask) when I'm going to start a blog, and then, 'Oh, I already have a blog, it's www.nytimes.com, don't you read it?'".