This information just in. According to Amy at Garden Rant NPR (National Public Radio) has laid off Ketzel Levine, who authored the NPR "Talking Plants" Blog. This is sad news, but not unexpected. We are seeing layoffs at all the major news outlets. For the last few years we have been talking about how the power is shifting from the traditional media outlets to non-traditional media. What is non-traditional media? Stuff like this blog. We always kind of knew this was coming down the pike, but it's still kind of weird to see it happening. Our responsibility to our readers has just taken a big leap. People are still looking for the truth. Where can they find the answers to the important questions in their lives? It will become more and more important to find those bloggers that you trust and can go to for information.

Sure, you can still write anything that comes in your head without any thought of what the consequences are, but that kind of blog will soon be ignored for more insightful writing. Right now people are figuring out where the good blogs are, and using them for much of their information. What are we telling our readers?

Are you a blogger that want's to help support small, locally owned business? Then your writing can have a direct impact on people, and their businesses.  You now have the power to influence the world for the better. The power has shifted form major media and paid writers, to bloggers, and for the most part un-paid writters. What's your motivation to keep writting? How about changing the world?

I think many of us bloggers are a bit afraid of this power shift. It was easier when you had major media to do the "important" stuff, while we wrote whatever. Now we are charged with the responsibility of actually having to account for our writting, and the resultant effects. Sure no one pay's us, but we still choose to write and people read what we write. How are you going to use this new power to influence your world?

Make no doubt about it, our little hobby (blogging) has completely changed the face of garden reporting.  The media outlets know it, which is why they have started their own blogs. Unfortunately for Ketzel, and others like her, the large media outlets have other problems that blogging just couldn't solve. We knew the world was changing, but the speed that it's happening has caught a lot of us off guard.