Well. Ball State University is certainly one of the eminent institutions of higher learning, isn't it?
Words from Ball should carry weight?
No, they simply don't know what they are talking about here.
Seriously, the truth is is that blogs like The Swamp are important experiments around where newspapers are going.
There can be little doubt that paper editions are going to disappear over the next decade or so. This has already happened in a few instances.
Because the Internet is far larger arena of competition, it will become vital for newspapers to involve their readers.
Every significant serious English newspaper now offers something like The Swamp.
There is another interesting innovation along these lines. The Toronto Globe and Mail allows comments to just about every story and feature published.
The Globe gets a very high level of response (as many as 500 posts or more on some items) and some are very informed comments (not all, they have their John Ds, too).
This makes the paper a very rich site for readers and gives them a high level of loyalty and interest.
The Times of London also does this, but limits the length of comments too much and censors too many. They also have a fine set of blogs like The Swamp with no word limits.
Ball State should go back to research on glass-bottle canning.
