The Globe and Mail

One surefire way to cause an avalanche of discussion on blogs is for a major media outlet to write a controversial article about, yes, blogging.

Late Saturday night, I checked the New York Times website and found a story from technology reporter Matt Richtel featured on the site's front page. I write three blogs and was therefore naturally interested in a story headlined, “In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop.”

Here's how it begins:

They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

To bolster his case, Richtel cites two well-known bloggers. One recently died of a heart attack, and another suffered a fatal coronary. One more is recovering from a heart attack. The implication was clear: They died from blogging. Maybe you will, too.

The possibilities for telecommuting, self-employment and freelance work have increased over recent years. People can easily be connected to an office or clients with nothing more than a laptop and cellphone. Lots of workers are going solo as consultants and freelancers. This includes writers and journalists, and has given rise to many new news sources that are built on blogging. The most successful blogs publish many times a day and battle constantly for scoops. It's a different pace, and the Times article suggests that this 24/7 publishing schedule is sending bloggers to an early grave.

But the story is weak. Two men who share the same profession die in the same time frame and suddenly the job did it? That's sad, but it's not much of a trend or claim.

Jeff Bercovici, who writes a great media blog for Portfolio magazine, notes that it's ridiculous to “accept at face value claims by a few fellow writers that their occupation is a singularly demanding one in a world of doctors, soldiers, air-traffic controllers, special-ed teachers and millions upon millions of sleep-deprived, time-stressed desk jockeys…”

Any job can be harmful to your health if you allow it to take over your life. Blogging isn't inherently hazardous to your health. We all feel the pressure of today's always-on world of work. As a blogger/journalist, I can't even summon the sympathy for my own supposed plight. Many people work in legitimately risky jobs; we just don't measure up in that department.

As for the article? It's number one on the Times' list of most-blogged articles. If we take the article's warnings at face value, that would mean the story is contributing to the very problem it chronicles.