Are blogs the new bling?

“Instead of spending millions on several homes, a fleet of cars and a trophy wife to prove his taste and success like a traditional pop star, he can simply showcase his impeccable taste on his blog.”

I love Sunday newspapers. I love Sunday newspapers so much that I buy too many of them to read in one day, and spend the rest of the week carrying around dog-eared supplements in my handbag in the hope of a free five minutes. Which is why it took until last night and a delayed train for me to come across this gem about Kanye West’s penchant for blogging, part of a brilliant feature by Luke Bainbridge in this week’s Observer Magazine.

Blogs over bling: Kanye West in Observer Magazine

Whilst us hard-up hacks-to-be struggle to blog ten times a term, apparently international hip hop superstar Kanye West blogs up to ten times a day, posting “a mixture of pictures of contemporary architecture, pieces from his favourite clothing designers, scantily clad models” and the occasional music video (his own, naturally). West created his blog “to open a straight discourse with fans and bypass the media”, and believes it has saved him “a whole bunch of money” by giving him somewhere to show off his excellent taste in just about everything, without ever having to actually buy any of it.

As an impoverished journalism student, saving money is one benefit to blogging that hadn’t occurred to me. But if a man who has made his fortune rapping about cash and cars is swapping his bling for a blog, you know you’re onto the next big thing. Perhaps next time I feel the urge for a new outfit, I’ll just raid TopShop online and post a few pictures up here. It’s the creative solution to the credit crunch: who needs to buy Louboutins and Lamborghinis when Creative Commons means you can bag them on your blog for free?

Lamborghini Gallardo: yours with just one click

But could this be the real reason most of us have blogs in the first place? Not to delve into the news and develop our journalistic skills, but to flaunt our impeccable taste in music, books, gadgets, entertainment and the company we keep? Are blogs ever really a journalistic tool, or are they just a wordy extension of those Facebook photo albums that scream about exotic holidays and champagne-soaked nights out?

I thought about all of this because I read the piece on the way home from an evening with Andrew Gilligan at the London College of Communication. As well as casting aspersions on the rise of “churnalism”, the accuracy of Peter Kosminsky’s filmmaking and his own reputation for eating a lot of biscuits, Gilligan also criticised newspapers for their overreliance on cheap and quick columnising over the “higher calling” of reporting. “Being a columnist is no job for a grown man,” he told us.

From Ariel Leve to Charles Moore, a well-written column is still one of my favourite parts of a newspaper. But perhaps Gilligan is right: columnising is no job for a grown man now that it’s a hobby for any man, woman or child with internet access and an idea. If everyone from Kanye West to Jamie Oliver is blogging on and showing off, what’s so professional about a professional columnist?

Jason Bennetto is concerned that online reporting is forcing newspapers downmarket, but now that cheap and cheerful columnising is available on the web for free, perhaps the printed pundits will be pushed into upping their game and reversing the trend. It’s time for the professionals to use their experience and expertise to produce the type of analysis, investigation and insight that the brightest blogger can’t compete with.

To paraphase Mr. West, newspapers now need to do it harder, better, faster and stronger than the rest of us.