From Ariana Pekary in the Columbia Journalism Review,
“IF YOU HAVE EVER SEEN ALL THE CABLE NEWS NETWORKS on screens next to each other—at the gym, for example—you’ll have noticed something strange: they all cover the same stories as each other, every day.
Given that these are separate and competing news organizations, and certainly don’t coordinate with each other, this can be hard to explain. Some topics—such as impeachment, especially on the day of the senate trial—are obvious; others, however, are not.
Such uniformity devalues the news; provides toxic voices with blanket coverage; and burns out and frustrates journalists, who feel in their bones that sprinting after the same story as everyone else is a fundamentally pointless activity.”
Law blogs, traditional legal news and legal scholarship tend to cover the same thing. Different words. Different publishers. But the same news and the same commentary.
A real opportunity for legal bloggers lies in getting outside the same.
Cover a niche that is not already being covered in the country, in your state or your state.
Your blog will be must have reading for lawyers and lay people with an interest on the subject. Your blog will be found in search and in social as the only coverage in your niche, and the topics on the subject.
Unlike the cable news networks, you don’t have to get on a cable, satellite or Internet network to get your blog on the air, distributed and to get seen.
Publish a niche blog and get outside the same.