Merriam-Webster Inc. said on Tuesday that “blog” was one of the most looked-up words on its Internet sites this year. It tops the list the 10 words of the year. I don’t know how you can read a newspaper or magazine, watch TV news or listen to the radio…and not have heard the word. But hardly a day goes by that I don’t find myself explaining. [Reuters story]
Category Archives: Blogging
Stats: 72,770 words
According to my Blogger Profile, I’ve written 72,770 words since I started this journal in August, 2001.
Bloggers and journalists
I’m a couple of hundred pages into to Dan Gillmor’s We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. Gillmor is technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, and his column runs in many other U.S. newspapers. He has been consistently listed by industry publications as among the most influential journalists in his field.
Our company owns and operates several state and regional radio news networks and I thought they might find the book interesting so I forwarded the Amazon review, which made reference to blogging. One of our news directors quickly responded:
“I don’t quite buy the idea that bloggers are journalists. They might be journal-writers or journal-keepers, but a blogger is a talk show host who usually thinks somebody should be interested in what he or she has to say, whether it’s correct, accurate, based on facts… or not. Blogging has some major integrity issues that make it more entertainment than trustworthy information. I still need sources I can trust, and blogs don’t reach that level yet.”
First of all, nobody has suggested –certainly not Dan Gillmor– that all bloggers are journalists. As it happens, Mr. Gillmor writes a blog and is a highly respected journalist. Does he have “integrity issues?” Speaking of which…
A few year back we had a reporter working in one of our newsrooms that was doing a lot of anti-gun stories. When I asked him about it, he said he felt he had to do these to “balance out” the (paid) NRA ads that were currently airing on our network. Then there was the report (same newsroom) that left us become the PR flack for the state Republican party. In his first public statement he said he could no long remain silent in the face of the threat posed by the liberal Democrats in our state. Talk about integrity issues.
My colleague’s reaction reminds me of the Pharisees’ outrage that this Jesus guy would muscle in on their turf (I’m not a religious guy but I saw Jesus Christ Superstar a couple of times). I should probably disclose that I am not a journalist. At least I don’t think I am. I didn’t go to J-School (I smoked some J’s while in school but…) but I did work at a small town radio station covered the news. I went to city council meetings and hospital board meetings and wrote stories and cut up some tape and did my best to tell people what happened. If we had had the Internet and blogs back then, I might have used that tool as well.
This whole blogger vs. journalist thing has been going on for a while and smarter folks than I have written about it. I have to say the Real Journalists come across a little shrill on the subject. There are thousands (millions?) of blogs out there and very few rise to the level of anything that might be called “journalism.” But the same might be said about what passes for news on a lot of radio stations. So let’s not be too quick to slam the temple doors. We might miss something good.
Convention blogging
Three of our reporters are heading for Boston to cover the Democratic Convention. As reporters for state news networks, they focus on the state delegations and do a lot of their work at the hotel where the delegates are staying. Along with our “regular” news coverage, each of the reporters will take a stab at blogging the four-day event as well. Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson posted some wonderful reports (via email) from the 2000 convention, but we just didn’t have tools (or the word “blog”). The other two guys are experienced reporters but are new to this kind of writing (as far as I know). Should be interesting.
Time.com on blogs
“…blogs have gone from an obscure and, frankly, somewhat nerdy fad to a genuine alternative to mainstream news outlets, a shadow media empire that is rivaling networks and newspapers in power and influence.”
Blogs let you remember
“Blogs let you remember what you think, what you feel, what you say, how you say it, what you care about and how you live in this world actually matters. Blogs remind us we matter.”
–Halley Suitt (2004)
The web is a conversation
David Wineberger says the Web is not a medium but, rather, a conversation. “Small Pieces, Loosely Joined.” I am endlessly fascinated by how the Web connects us. Last year Dan Arnall completed his master’s degree at Columbia University and is still living and working (part-time?) at CNN and MSNBC (or one of those cable channels). If anyone can be held responsible for my pathetic addiction to the Web, it’s Dan. We are loosely joined.
“Just the other day I read your blog entry (Cozy) and noticed that the model home you mentioned was just a few blocks away in Tribeca. I hopped the train after work, saw the damn thing and talked to the architect. I even went so far as to pass it along to CNNfns Housing/Real Estate reporter. She went out and shot a segment that will air in the next few weeks.
I don’t think blogging is about random voyeuristic pleasure. It’s an acknowledgement that there is value in almost every thought and experience of the everyman not just self-appointed pundits or editors. You may not know it, but someone might just find something they need in what you blog: a CNN segment, a moment of laughter, sometimes even a sense of connection with someone they’ve never met.”
Halley Suitt: Life in a box
“…about how we all spend so much time having a life that seems to be the kind of life other people have — get up, get breakfast, get dressed, go to work, get there at 9:00, leave there at 5:00 or 6:00 or whatever, come home, eat dinner, watch TV — and I suddenly found this really sad. That we come to this earth and that’s all we can come up with for a life. I don’t want to be the fire-eating woman in the circus or something, but I think I want more of a life than a person who lives in a box, leaves their box in the morning, gets in their box-with-wheels, drives to another office box, sits in that box for 8 hours, their butt spreading a little wider every day from just sitting there, goes home to their box, sits in front of the box, eats a frozen dinner out of a box, goes to sleep on their mattress and box spring.”
Mark Cuban has a blog
Here’s a rich, successful, influential mogul…that finds the time (and inclination) to maintain a web log. I’m sorry, but this means something. I just don’t know what, yet.
Cory Doctorow on blogging
“Writing a blog entry about a useful and/or interesting subject forces me to extract the salient features of the link into a two- or three-sentence elevator pitch to my readers, whose decision to follow a link is predicated on my ability to convey its interestingness to them. This exercise fixes the subjects in my head the same way that taking notes at a lecture does, putting them in reliable and easily-accessible mental registers.”
[via Halley’s Comment]