LexBlog Marketing Guru Kevin O’Keefe, of Real Lawyers Have Blogs isn’t putting up with being dissed by New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller.  Keller writes that “new media” (that means blogs) will never challenge old media (that means the New York Times, because you don’t get much older than the Times).  Why?  Because they are trustworthy.  We just make stuff up.

But that’s not all.  Old media ferrets out news.  It creates stories, while blogs just repeat them.

He says “What is absent from the vast array of new media outlets is, first and foremost, the great engine of newsgathering – the people who witness events, ferret out information, supply context and explanation.”

Kevin’s not buying.  But then, LexBlog’s business is selling.  Specifically, selling “turnkey weblog solutions.”  So, Kevin may have a bit of an interest in disagreeing with Keller’s assessment, just like Keller’s got a bit of an interest in knocking the blog phenomenon.  I love it when business models clash.

So Kevin comes right back at Keller:

Give us a five years and 75,000 more law blogs and we practicing lawyers, law professors, and law students will be doing a lot of reporting. And a force to reckoned with if we are not incorporated into legal newspapers and magazines.

Sigh.  Five years and 75,000 more law blogs?  That’s a lot of posts and a whole lotta blawgs.  So who is reading all these blawgs?  Who is writing all these blawgs?  What the hell are they getting out of all this?   Seriously, can you imagine scanning 75,000 blawgs a day?  A week? Whatever? 

It’s absurd, as it is to believe that there are 75,000 people who are going to bring substantive content to the web.  Sure, the guys sitting around their office waiting for the phone to ring might as well start a blawg about how they’re the best thing since sliced bread, but they’re going to can that crap as soon as they realize that they’ve wasted a ton of time and haven’t made a dime.  Every lawyer will have a blawg for one month. 

Now I have no horse in the turnkey blog biz, so I can come at this as an honest broker.  Keller is wrong.  Granted, the Times comes at info dissemination with ascribed credibility.  After all, it IS the New York Times.  But that doesn’t mean that blawgs can’t compete, or at least take some of the wind out of their sails.   Blawgs can attain credibility over time, and prove every bit as trustworthy as a newspaper (some may say more so). 

But blawgs have something that the old media will never have.  We can publish far faster than they can.  We are quick and nimble, and we have no bureaucracy that will stymie our ability to address issue in real time and with full and frank discussion.  They are a business, and have a business-like approach. Blawgs just lay it out, fearlessly and frankly.  Take that, Keller!

On the other hand, I can’t say that I agree with Kevin’s vision of the future, aside from the ludicrous idea that anybody needs 75,000 blawgs.  The act of news gathering takes time, effort and access.  The people who do it need to eat.  If they are spending their time gathering news like reporters, then they aren’t practicing law and earning a living.  This is a problem.  You can only be in one place at a time (unless you are an amoeba). 

Then there’s the writing dilemma.  Most lawyers can’t write worth a darn.  So even if they come up with interesting content, they manage to turn the sexiest bit of news into a bore.  Buying a blawg doesn’t mean you know how to write, or that anyone will want to read anything to put out there.  Didn’t anybody tell you about this before you gave them the credit card?

While Kevin is probably right that 75,000 lawyers will give blawging a try, 74,597 will give it up after a month or so and go back to their spouses and children.  Saturating a market, a concept that seems to come into play a lot around here lately, helps no one.  Except people selling blawgs.

Just so you know, I was asked to be “interviewed” by a guy named Rob from LexBlog for a “Q&A” piece.  He Q’d and I A’d.  I emailed it back to him and haven’t heard a word since.  He may have punked me, even though my answers were (naturally) brilliant and fascinating.  But my answers pretty much express what I’m posting now about the blawgosphere.  Of course, whether they ever see the light of day on LexBlog has yet to be seen.  [edit in] Rob has now  posted my Q on Kevin’s blog, so  read it here and I take back my snarky “punked” comment (and anything else stupid I may have said from the beginning of time until now, as long as I’m taking things back).

I have no issue for those who want to monetize their time online.  It’s the American way.  But blawging isn’t the next gold rush, and after the hype fades away, it will find its real level in the cosmos of new media.  The only question is who will be left standing in the blawgosphere when that time comes.