Jarvis: competition makes blogs inevitable in big media

Jeff Jarvis, one of the enlightened big media execs who blogs and has succeeded in fostering blogs within his company, notes that Time has now joined CNN from axing a reporter’s blog. Jeff runs through all the pros and cons of publisher-funded blogs and concludes, “I predict competition will open this up. If Newsweek blogs, Time will. If FoxNews blogs, CNN will. Give it time.”

Jeff rebuts publisher concerns that j-bloggers will hurt their brand’s credibility. But he doesn’t address what I’ve assumed that the core publisher fear: that the j-blogger will establish a big audience of his/her own and hive off into nanopublishing.

Although publishers pay the bills for now, blogs dissolve the fundemental formula of publishing economics, the imbalance of power that allows a publisher to remind an uppity journalist: “you need our distribution more than we need your copy.”

But perhaps the moguls don’t see this as a threat, but just failed dotcom fantasy?