It’s been a busy year in the world of D.C. media. People have come and gone, newspapers have struggled to salvage their readership, and blogs are more the rage than ever.

Blogging’s the New Black
Everyone’s blogging these days, and the D.C. media is no exception. The Post led the charge in 2006, throwing blogs at every issue that came its way — 29 to date. While some have received rave reviews — the D.C. Sports Bog, for one — others have had trouble publishing even weekly. Yes, D.C. Wire, we’re looking at you. The Post did learn the hard way that commenters, the lifeblood of the new democratized media, can easily hijack entire threads and turn them into he-said-she-said flame wars, pushing the paper to shut down commenting all together and revive it only in moderated form. Express, the Post’s commuter-friendly spinoff, also took to the blogosphere under the leadership of DCist’s own Mike Grass, featuring interactive reader polls that list votes by Metro station.

Not everyone fared so well, though. The Washington Times increased its blog offerings from three to 10 over the course of the year, though posting was inconsistent and the most attention they got for their online content was the perch they offered their summer interns — which wasn’t terribly good. The City Paper finally realized that their website was at least a decade out of date, offering it a much needed facelift while formally turning their “City Desk” feature into the paper’s main blog. It’s only problem was that the paper’s staff didn’t seem to know what to do with it — posting was spotty at best, and much of the content seemed like leftovers from the weekly print editions. Things have improved recently, but for an alternative weekly who’s readership is young and tech-savvy, City Desk leaves something to be desired.

Next year will likely see more and more mainstream media outlets turning to the blogosphere. The Washingtonian, fresh from a much-needed website upgrade, will expand its own nascent blogging empire in the new year, while D.C. Style will go into 2007 as an online-only publication. Of course, blogs are hardly the cure-all that some media would like to think they are. The barrier of entry into the blogosphere might be low, but the cost of remaining in is suprisingly high — the more blogs there are out there, the more their creators and contributors will have to fight for each and every reader. But if existing media outlets can craft their own independent voice and work with existing bloggers and community groups on stories of interest, there’s no limit to what can be accomplished.