Blogger Burnout

I've just finished reading a really, really scary piece in the New York Times about how bloggers are getting burned out and then dying.

It's at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/technology/06sweat.html?ref=technology

The situation just is not right --- Bloggers are obsessed about breaking the story when it's merely seconds old. Get beaten, even by a second, and you, (as a blogger) risk lost advertising revenues and reputation. In other words, it's a death spiral. And it really is, in that two prominent bloggers Russell Shaw and Marc Orchant, both died as a result of stress-induced heart attacks. Om Malik, also had a heart attack, he was lucky and lived.

So what's happening here? Someone will break a story before it actually happens? Is this what the internet has done to the business of news?

Other prominent bloggers complain about weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing stories.

No good guys. Hang it up. Being first is not worth dying for. No way. Just take it easy and if things slow down to break-neck speeds, that's fine too. The world will wait. After all, today's news is at the bottom of tomorrow's birdcage. Does it really make that huge of a difference whether today begins at 9:03 am as opposed to say 4:11am?