Sunday, September 02, 2007

The debate continues ...

... The blog haters have barely any idea what they are raging against. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

"Most journalists' understanding of the nature of blogging has been circumscribed by a focus on how it might affect our profession. We write articles about whether blogging can be journalism, we worry about whether bloggers can or will replace journalists, and we miss the real stories."


  1. It's probably all a matter, if we were to get to the epsychological essence, that the relevant journos have, i nhtir minds, risen up the rungs of the intellectual ant-heap & much to their chagrin their satisfaction of their will to intellectual power has been eroded by the more purely democratic exchange of thought via the internet, as opposed to the closed systems of the estd media. By extension, the political powers that be, interesed as they always are in the centralisation of power wihtin hteir good, or probably not so good, selves also have a vested interest in the freedom of communication being restricted to these controlled avenues of information where what gets said fits the relevant power elite's agenda rather than reflecting some kind of objective truth.

  2. Anonymous4:31 PM

    Yes, as a blogger, it's tiresome. Half of the bloghate says "you don't, and never will, matter" and the other says "you matter too much."

    If I had to take a stab at what blogs are "best at":

    1. getting the voices of knowlegeable, but under PR'd, people heard. Sometimes such people blog, but more often than not they comment. Countless times I've found out "the real deal" but reading the comments. Nearly always, journalists only talk to a short list of contacts when it comes to some topic, and people on that short list can unduly sway the coverage. Happens in my field (physics) and my hobby (poetry reviewing) all the time.

    2. refocusing the debate. Blogs often take the same information as newspapers, but refocus attention on some aspect. I don't think newspapers are in the habit of "covering up", but I do think journalists like to have a neat story and that influences what they do or do not print from their notes.

    3. Bloggers don't have the resources to devote their lives to full-time reporting. But they very often do surface neglected facts or interpretations. It's pretty clear that the best journalists at this point are reading the blogs of the subjects they are covering (they rarely acknowlege blogs as a source but most bloggers don't care!)