The New York Times has a new article out looking at stress and bloggers, particularly in the case of professional bloggers who pull down five and six figure salaries. When you're publishing things yourself, it's hard work to provide high-quality content quick enough so that you're first to a story. Otherwise, you'll just have to hope for some link love and try to be the first on the scene the next time.
I assume that professional political and technology bloggers are the most stressed, but as far as my own habits go I don't feel particularly strung out or under pressure. If anything, I find it more useful to go back and dig out old research rather than stay on top of the latest news. I think I've got my own little niche that allows me to happily write about what interests me, although if I were a professional the pressure would be on to make sure my employers were happy with my performance.
As I've said before, I think science blogs are fundamentally different from most other forms of blogging in that most bloggers are able to bring something new to the discussion and there's room for many different perspectives. I know nearly nothing about medicine, chemistry, microbiology, physics, etc., and likewise many other bloggers don't have the same insights into zoology and paleontology that I do, so there's no real competition there. Of those that do share my interests (and are even better-versed in the subjects than I am), they have their own style that results in link-love more than competition. There doesn't seem to be much stress or pressure to perform at all. Granted, we science bloggers sometimes get embroiled in some controversies that result in hurt feelings & bruised egos, but I don't think that we're all counting the minutes until the next issue of Nauture or Science comes out so that we can jump on the hottest story and beat everyone else.
Would I want to make a living blogging? I really can't say, and if I was I probably wouldn't be blogging about science. I'd rather write a book, a paper, or magazine article; something a little more tangible than a constant output of posts attempting to drive or maintain traffic so I can keep the lights on. Such hypothetical situations aside, I think things are going pretty well as they are, and I'm still able to unplug myself from the computer when I don't have a new post in mind.
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I can call myself a professional bloggers and I laughed at this article in NYT, then laughter turned into anger...
As a reader of a few different types of blogs, I suggest gently that there's a component of self-delusion here.
Everyone wants to be different; everyone wants to be special. As far as I can see, some appends at science blogs are written based on deep knowledge; some aren't. Some are well thought-out; some aren't. Some are reasonably balanced; some aren't. Some are well-written; some aren't.
I think that the same comments apply to every category of blog.
Scott; I have my doubts as to whether it's even possible to gently posit self-delusion.
In a general sense (i.e. being balanced vs. not, being well-written vs. not) science blogs are like just about any other blogs. That's true about just about any type of writing in general, though, and doesn't really cover the differences I had in mind.
Maybe you are right and science blogs conform to a general pattern similar to other blogs, but at the same time I think there are other aspects (like the responsibility to accurately convey research) that make science blogs more distinct.
Science blogs are going to vary to other blog types by varying degrees. Just about any given blog that can bear the title of "science blog" is going to differ substantially from blog that is primarily on online journal of personal thoughts. At the same time, science blogs might have more in common with political blogs that require a certain amount of research and fact-checking. There are some general notions that apply to all of them, but the fact that I can talk about science blogs at all and have that phrase understood as something distinct reflects that fact that there are definite differences that go beyond the topic being addressed.