Blog on Blog

So now is the time when I unkindly tear your blog article apart. :)

First, with Coyne's experiment: You should have drawn a more explicit link with blogs as one form of participatory journalism.

With respects to the election prediction experiment, you could have compared it to the results from The Election Prediction Project [ http://www.electionprediction.org/ ], which called the June 28/04 federal vote a little closer (the project worked by having participants make riding-by-riding predictions across the country; it got 268 right out of 306).

While not specifically a participatory journalism project, it was a more successful one than Coyne's.

You wrote:

Blogs strengthen the reader-writer bond, allowing journalists to hear from readers firsthand, while giving readers a stronger sense of the journalist's personality and point of view. Although some critics see blogs as echo chambers for the arrogant and others dismiss them as a fad, defenders argue that the medium offers significant advantages for creators and consumers alike.

I don't know if they're echo chambers for the arrogant so much as echo chambers for the like-minded (which, now that I think about it, was my point in the story. So I guess my views haven't changed. :) ). But I would also note that the hazards of groupthink does seem to be the point of your opening argument.

I would ask, how do you know they offer significant advantages for consumers? In what sense? I would note you didn't interview any consumers.

You didn't spend enough time explaining the difference between websites and weblogs.

I would have thrown in something about how the development of content management systems for the masses (i.e. software like blogware, typepad, blogspot, etc.) allowed those with no technical skills to easily post content to a website.

That is an under-appreciated part of the blog revolution.

Ana Marie Cox, it should be pointed out, doesn't own Wonkette. She is an employee of Gawker Media; Cox could be killed by a bus tomorrow, but Wonkette would live.

You wrote the following:

South of the border, news blogs, such as Power Line, Little Green Footballs, and Free Republic, are even more aggressive watchdogs.

I would be very careful about calling those blogs "news blogs" -- but I would apply the same caution to their liberal equivalents.

Those are some of the most toxic blogs, IMO, because they are so rabidly political that they emanate from a parallel universe. They make Mr. Coyne's conservative-leaning audience look like a utopia of ideological diversity. And there is no internal self-correction within those communities that I've seen.

And for the record, I'll repeat that those blogs exist less to correct the MSM than to attempt to destroy it.

For an admittedly liberal take on this subject, see Citizen Journalists or Partisan Hacks?, by Eric Bohlert in Salon [ http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/08/schiavo_memo/index.html ].

BTW, I think your info about Markos Moulitsas, of Daily KOS fame, is inaccurate. He wasn't paid to promote the Dean campaign on his blog. He was hired to be an Internet consultant to the campaign. He disclosed that on his blog over the course of the three-month contract.

But again, Moulitsas doesn't describe himself as a journalist, he's upfront about being a liberal activist who distributes information.

BTW, I don't think Coyne's statement about editing at the NYT is ludicrous. The Jayson Blair case was a horrible systemic breakdown.

I don't believe Dan Gillmor is down on horizontal editing so much as he is on the dissing of traditional editing.

You wrote:

Even as blogs become serious business, few media outlets have established any policies to govern the practice.

How have they become serious business? What Canadian journalist has been able to quit his day job and make big bucks as a blogger? I believe the number of non-lottery winners who have done so is zero. :)

But if journos' blogs amass enough audience to attract advertising revenue, will that change the balance? What problems could it create?

For example, let's say I work for a public broadcaster and broadcast a popular show on Canadian electronica.

In my spare time, I start a blog. A major electronica label starts sponsoring my blog -- and paying me handsomely for the privilege.

All of a sudden, virtually everything on my public broadcaster's show is from this particular label.

See where I'm going with this?

Another BTW: I don't necessarily feel like I'm doing journalism when I'm blogging -- or vice-versa. They're closely related, but there's a real, if amorphous, line between the two.

You wrote: "(Andrew Sullivan's) post, thanking the 330,000 readers who dropped by on election day, made me wonder if blog readership would die down with the election over." Well of *course* it would!! :) But so what? And if some blogs die right out, so what? Think of the blogosphere as a forest; trees come and go, but barring catastrophe, the forest lives.

I definitely think blogs are not the CB radios of the 21st century.

I would compare their situation to e-mail addresses and Internet access for reporters 10 or so years ago. The bizarre technophobia and paranoia that some editors had for the Internet back then leaves me dumbfounded to this day.

If I can make a prediction, it's that in five to 10 years, every reporter will have a blog. It will be a commonly accepted reporting and communications tool.

Now that I've said all that, it's a decent piece. If I was your prof, I'd give you a B.

Where I think it fell down somewhat was in overall focus and linkage of ideas within the piece.

In terms of my remarks, you quoted me accurately and in context.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Cheers
Bill D.

Bill D. you are a pompous ass

My rebuttle:

I assumed my readers, namely Canadian journlalists, know a lot more about blogs than the average Joe. This is why my lead did not stress blogs as participatory journalism as much as it could have - journalists are aware of this fact more than anyone else.

Of course I followed The Election Prediction Project as it happened. I didn't mention it in my piece because, again, I was focusing on journalists, not on blogs. The point of my lead was that it didn't matter that the results were unsuccessful - Coyne's experiment was an example of participatory democracy at its finest.

As for my part on blogs being echo-chambers for the arrogant, I wasn't referring to your comments, my arrogant friend. It was Paul Wells who called blogging "an arogant thing to do."

When I said, "the medium offers significant advantages for creators and consumers alike," perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "consumers" since it created confusion for you. Consumers here implies readers.

Although earlier drafts contained much information on the difference between websites and weblogs, as well as examples of easy-to-use sites such as blogger and typepad, this information was cut for good reason. Again, when writing for a specific audience, you have to know what they know. I, a young lady with no html skills whatsoever who discovered blogs in September after using the web for a decade, understand more than anyone that this is an under-appreciated part of the blog revolution. Journalists, on the other hand, don't need to hear more on what they've read in so many articles on the subject in the last few years. They want a new take on the issue and I gave it to them.

I did not say that Ana Marie Cox owns Wonkette - I said that she "left journalism to edit Wonkette."

I disagree with your statement that Power Line, Little Green Footballs, and Free Republic are not news blogs. They offer news to the masses, and in my humble opinion, that makes them news blogs. Perhaps they do exist more to destroy the MSM than correct it, but regardless of their motovation, they are indeed media watchdogs.

Although true that Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is not a journalist, and he did disclose his ties to the Howard Dean campaign on his site, he was definitely paid to promote Dean. Zephyr Teachout, the former head of Internet outreach for Dean, blogged the following: "On Dean's campaign, we paid Markos and Jerome Armstrong as consultants, largely in order to ensure that they said positive things about Dean."

I agree with you that Coyne's statement, "People say that no one edits blogs, but Jayson Blair proved that no one's editing The New York Times either," is not the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard. My editors made it clear to me from the beginning that I couldn't let a quote like that just hang there. I had to show its weaknesses as well as its strengths. I quoted him in context, showing that horizontal editing creates a level of interactivity mainstream publications can't compete with. Only then did I bash him. I even made it a pull-quote to show the importance of his statement.

You're right that Dan Gillmor isn't just down on horizontal editing. I was making a point about horizontal editing, and used him as an example of someone who dismisses it as the only way to go.

How have blogs become serious business you ask? I was simply implying that blogs may become serious business in the future, expanding on Tony Walsh's statement from the previous paragraph where he explains that bloggers will begin to understand terms like libel and slander, making them more like serious business.

You say you don't feel like you're doing journalism when you're blogging, and I didn't say you do. I said, "Doskoch believes his blog makes him a better journalist, and being a journalist makes him a better blogger." That's what you told me. That's what I wrote.

I don't think blogs are the CB radio of 21st century either. Wells does. I agree that in five to ten years, every reporter will have a blog. I was showing both sides of the story, a crucial part of any piece of journalism.

If I was my prof, I'd give me an A+.

1. It's "rebuttal"

2. I think you seriously overestimate most journalists' knowledge of blogs.

3. I don't know that I'd call Coyne's experiment "an example of participatory democracy at its finest." It was an interesting experiment, but a failed one in terms of outcome. 279 readers isn't very much (you need a thousand for a decent poll).

4. "As for my part on blogs being echo-chambers for the arrogant, I wasn't referring to your comments, my arrogant friend. It was Paul Wells who called blogging "an arogant thing to do."

True, but there was no attribution in that graf. The reader only finds out this is Wells' view further in.

I was just making my view known.

Again, which consumers/readers did you talk to about how a journalist's blog has provided a significant benefit for them?

Why is posting a note on a blog better than e-mailing a columnist or phoning them?

5. You said this about Cox: "(her politics and culture blog)." Not a huge point, but it's not her blog. It's Gawker Media's.

6. Again, LGF, Power Line, etc. are news blogs the way Pravda was a newspaper in the old Soviet Union. You say news. I say propaganda. Assuming your readers know how politically charged they are is a mistake.

7. Just because Teachout had written they hoped to influence Moulitsas didn't mean they didn't they did. Frankly, they probably didn't have to. Moulitsas was pro-Dean. The sentence suggests Moulitsas took payola to pimp Dean and was caught out, which isn't what happened.

8. The "serious business" thing needed more expansion. Again, from a *business* perspective, I don't think most blogs in this country are even close to being economically self-sustaining, let alone profitable. Right now, they're largely hobbies or loss leaders.

Walsh's quote is, I think, suggesting that most bloggers don't recognize that getting sued can be a serious thing -- and that they can be sued.

You wrote "Even as blogs become serious business ...". To me, that's not implying. That's saying it's happening.

9. "You say you don't feel like you're doing journalism when you're blogging, and I didn't say you do. I said, "Doskoch believes his blog makes him a better journalist, and being a journalist makes him a better blogger." That's what you told me. That's what I wrote."

And I said you quoted me accurately on that part.

10. "I don't think blogs are the CB radio of 21st century either. Wells does. I agree that in five to ten years, every reporter will have a blog. I was showing both sides of the story, a crucial part of any piece of journalism."

I'm just saying I disagree with Wells. I don't remember if Gates specifically said the Internet was a fad, but Microsoft was certainly slow off the mark.

If you agree with my statement that every reporter will have a blog in five to 10 years, why didn't you state that explicitly in the article?

11. "If I was my prof, I'd give me an A+."

We'll have to agree to disagree, but I am perplexed that you think your story is almost perfect, yet I'm arrogant for suggesting otherwise.

Two points about your article.

First of all, Free Republic is a discussion board, not a blog.

Secondly, highlighting only Canadian journalists who blog and American bloggers makes me think you put zero effort into this. Perhaps if you expanded your blogroll to include more than journalist bloggers you'd have a better idea of what blogging is about.

Okay, I lied, there are three points I want to make about your article.

There is more to the blogosphere than the political corner of it.

"2. I think you seriously overestimate most journalists' knowledge of blogs."

I agree. According to Antonia Zerbisias a few months ago, most of the journalists she's surrounded by have no idea what a blog is.

You might benefit from reading this blogpost from Chandrasutra.
http://chandrasutra.typepad.com/chandra/2005/04/the_bloggers_bl.html

Bill: The only thing I really agree with is the spelling of rebuttal. It was 5 am when I wrote all that after all.

Robert: It's the Ryerson Review of Journalism for goodness sake! Have you read any of the other articles in the mag? Honestly.

Hope to see you both at the launch party tonight to discuss further.

If I was your editor, I would be less worried about your spelling than your judgment.

But you gave yourself an A+, and who am I to say otherwise?

Hope you enjoyed the party.

"According to Antonia Zerbisias a few months ago, most of the journalists she's surrounded by have no idea what a blog is."

Is it relevant that most of the journalists Zerb works with probably have no idea what a "book" is either?

From a story on a Pew Internet and American Life study in January:

"Despite the attention to blogging, a large number of Americans remain clueless — only 38 percent of Internet users know what a blog is ..."

From David Akin's blog:

"A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released March 11 found 56% of 1,008 adults surveyed have no knowledge of blogs. Even among Internet users, only 32% said they are very or somewhat familiar with blogs. Only 3% read a blog every day."

I think assuming that journalists, most of whom aren't very tech-savvy, know a lot about blogs is a judgment error.

Pew Internet Study - November 2004: Only 11 per cent of Internet users are regular blog readers

Pew Internet Study - January 2005: Blog readership in the U.S. jumps 58 per cent in 2004 to 32 million readers, but 62 per cent of internet users still have no idea what a blog is

I included these stats on my blog and in previous drafts of my piece. Review editors cut it. Why? Journalists read. Other people don't. Journalists, by definition, are in the know. New trends, especially those that impact them, are their business.

"I included these stats on my blog and in previous drafts of my piece. Review editors cut it. Why? Journalists read. Other people don't. Journalists, by definition, are in the know. New trends, especially those that impact them, are their business."

Bad assumption. Bad judgment.

Thanks for the thoughts Bill. You made a lot of good points. The truth is, I agree with you at times.

I did a lot of research on the dawn of the Internet and the birth of blogs. I watched blog documentaries and met with the Broken Pencil team. I thought the info was very relevant to my piece, and provided background for those who needed it. Like me. Somewhere between draft 2 and 3, around the same time my editor told me, "we want less cheerleading and more scrutinizing," I was convinced that it had to go. It would have been nice to keep.

And blogs are not echo chambers for the arrogant. I don't believe that at all. My editor wrote that line in his fourth edit.

I did 50 interviews, but didn't do enough research on Rather-gate. I read lots of articles, but didn't check out Power Line, Little Green Footballs, and Free Republic enough on my own. If you say they're out to destroy journalism, I believe you.

Like I said before, I really liked Coyne's comparison of editing on blogs and the Jayson Blair fiasco. One of my sections, on "getting buzz, not getting it right," said the Times' fact-checking went awry not the editing. But my instructor called Coyne's quote "dopey," so I dropped it.

I know I said I agree that all reporters will have a blog in 5-10 years, but I'm not sure I do. I think blogs are here for the long haul, but there are a lot of journalists out there.

I don't think my piece is perfect. I'm used to a little praise with criticism.

Hey! Leave me out of this! Please and thank you.

Hey! How did I get dragged into this??

Just for the record: I never said "most" of the people I work with don't know what a blog is. I haven't canvassed a representative sample. I can say that some don't, and I am astounded at that.