So You Want to be a Philly Blogger? Pay Up!
July 5th, 2011Over the past few years, blogging has become the new way to spread news and information. Now, with the help of the Internet, citizen journalists across the world can opine and discuss the big issues of the day, even present their own issues, to a worldwide audience for little or no money. Yes, blogging has become the newest, trendiest expression of one’s First Amendment rights and as a free-market competitor to mainstream media and the 24-hour news cycle.
That is, unless you’re a blogger from Philadelphia, where it will soon cost $300 to set up your own site.
According to Philadelphia-based Midnight Blue, the city may require prospective bloggers to purchase a $300 license due to the “potential profit” that may result from hosting one’s own blog. In essence, it is considering blog sites as businesses. To this blogger, this measure seeks to lump independent media sources into the same category as mainstream media outlets, which actually operate on a profit motive through readership sales, viewing numbers, and advertising. Granted, some blogging software comes with the option to earn a little bit of money through advertisements that could be related to your posts, but it is typically pennies that are difficult to acquire and not worth the $300 fee that the city of Philadelphia claims it deserves.
Blogging has always been the freest of free expressions. We can’t all be big name journalists with regular columns in widely-read newspapers and have talk shows on popular cable networks, so the internet is the best place to get oneself heard. If this ordinance is allowed to law, it would be a massive hurdle for opinionated Americans to overcome to express themselves in a low-cost manner that fits them.
