Forbes and its new legion of bloggers

Andrew Vanacore of the Associated Press writes about the Forbes overhaul and examines what it means for its Web site and the bloggers that will be providing content.

Vanacore writes, “Along with a redesigned magazine that arrives on newsstands Friday, Forbes is constructing a vast network of bloggers, each expected to build their own personal audience and brand around a steady stream of Web postings and links to social sites like Facebook and Twitter.

“The hope is bring more traffic to forbes.com and provide extra fodder for the print edition, which has been forced to cut staff because of a dramatic decline in advertising.

“In doing so, Forbes is throwing out some of the old norms of journalism. Many of these bloggers won’t have any background in reporting. Instead, the magazine is recruiting specialists to write on specific topics. And they won’t have a lot of immediate oversight. Forbes.com has gradually shifted to a blogging system in which contributors publish straight to the Web, rather than going through copy editing..

“Some staffers said they were nervous about the quality of the product, not to mention their job security, now that Forbes is bringing in so many outside contributors that are not paid much. The staffers spoke on condition of not being identified because they weren’t authorized to talk to reporters.”

Read more here.

Disclosure: Talking Biz News provides content to Forbes.com here.