Blogging boys' club

Newsweek's Steven Levy asks a pointed question: Does the blogosphere have a diversity problem?

Viewed one way, the issue seems a bit absurd. These self-generated personal Web sites are supposed to be the ultimate grass-roots phenomenon. The perks of alpha bloggers—voluminous traffic, links from other bigfeet, conference invitations, White House press passes—are, in theory, bequeathed by a market-driven merit system. The idea is that the smartest, the wittiest and the most industrious in finding good stuff will simply rise to the top, by virtue of a self-organizing selection process.

So why, when millions of blogs are written by all sorts of people, does the top rung look so homogeneous? It appears that some clubbiness is involved. [Halley] Suitt puts it more bluntly: "It's white people linking to other white people!" (A link from a popular blog is this medium's equivalent to a Super Bowl ad.) Suitt attributes her own high status in the blogging world to her conscious decision to "promote myself among those on the A list."

The issue came to the forefront during a recent conference at Harvard on blogging and the media, during which Suitt issued the Ten New Voices challenge to attendees: Find, introduce and link to 10 bloggers who are not white American men. Specifically, the list must include five women, at least three non-Americans and no white males. She's started a report card to track their progress.