by Sarah Schoenfelder -

Would you believe there are nearly as many Americans earning their keep as bloggers as there are lawyers?  Or that there are more professional bloggers in America than firefighters? I didn't buy it at first glance, but The Wall Street Journal shares some convincing stats.  Says the Journal’s Mark Penn: “The best studies we can find say we are a nation of over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income. That's almost 2 million Americans getting paid by the word, the post, or the click -- whether on their site or someone else's.”

Blogging has risen from a niche microtrend to an emerging cultural movement, one that employs (at least part-time) nearly 1% of American adults.  Admittedly, a much smaller percentage makes a good living blogging.  After all, as Penn explains, “It takes about 100,000 unique visitors a month to generate an income of $75,000.” Still, as the media world reels under economic pressures and the number of journalists falls, blogging is on the rise. With no unions, no benefits, no regulations, and lower pay than professional writers, many content sites are hiring bloggers as ersatz freelancers.

All it takes to start a blog is a computer and an opinion. Talk about a populist's favorite form of expression! That low barrier to entry invites a whole host of other issues. Will blogging reinvent the art of writing or be its downfall?

Penn doesn't cast his vote, but poses a question worth considering: “for how long can nearly 500,000 people who are gradually replacing whole swaths of journalists survive with no worker protections, no enforced ethics codes, limited standards, and, for most , no formal training?”  We don’t yet have all the answers, but chances are, someone is blogging on it.  Source: Wall Street Journal, more