Love or hate the people whose passion comes before getting a degree in journalism, blogging has become a necessary evil for some of the biggest names in mainstream media.

Their work may not ever end up printed by the Washington Post, but the venerable publication has no problem getting a boost in online readership from what blogs can deliver.

Any lingering hard-edged hatred in the old-school newsroom has been beaten into a friendly rounded surface by the need to boost the bottom line with online ad revenue:

This year, the Washington Post added a sponsored blog roll to its website, a directory of links to blogs that specialize in travel, technology, health and more. If the Post sells an ad on the blog roll’s main page, the bloggers split the money with the newspaper. So far, about 100 bloggers have signed up.

To Caroline Little, the chief executive of Washingtonpost Newsweek Interactive, the ad network is good business. Most ad buyers don’t want to take the time to buy space on dozens of different blogs, she said, and the staff-driven side of the website often doesn’t have enough stories about technology, business or health for advertisers looking to place ads near that content. With the blog roll, the Post can grab ad revenue that might have gone elsewhere.

“It’s about figuring out how to monetize other people’s content,” Little said.

Monetizing is good, especially when you don’t have to pay a DC salary plus bennies for the content, when exposure is worth its weight in gold to a blogger.

Via the LA Times