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The dismissive tone of the article makes me think that the writer is just another member of an anointed establishment (newspapermen in this case) that feels thr

The dismissive tone of the article makes me think that the writer is just another member of an anointed establishment (newspapermen in this case) that feels threatened by a new paradim made possible by new technology. "Journalist" and "blogger" are not mutually exclusice terms. A journalist is one who reports the news, a blog is merely the medium.w

jimbokun 18y ago
What part was dismissive? I didn't get that sense at all. If anything, he seemed to be acknowledging that blogging is rapidly eclipsing his profession. It is true that a journalist can blog his stories, but I doubt that a significant amount of blogging is original reporting. The vast majority is probably opinion or analysis of one sort or another.
- alanthonyc 18y ago
  My initial read was a quick one on my phone, so I went back to make sure I wasn't wrong.... "This could make us the most noisily opinionated nation on earth." - Just a noisy opinion, in my opinion. "All this fits with the trend toward Opinion TV. Less and less of our information flow is devoted to gathering facts, and more and more is going toward popularizing opinion. Twenty-four-hour news channels have been replaced by 24-hour opinion channels. The chatter is the story." - Nice job fitting in another baseless stance around a fact simply to legitimize said opinion by proximity. Conveniently left unsaid is the fact that the "twenty-four-hour news channels" he holds up on a pedestal are themselves 24-hour opinion channels. Have you ever stayed home from work for a day and watched CNN or Fox News? "Bloggers make money if their consumers click the ads on their sites. Some sites even pay writers by the click, which is of course a system that promotes sensationalism, or doing whatever it takes to get noticed." - Again, assigning a label ("sensationalism") to blogs as if it didn't exist before blogs did. National Enquirer-type rags aside, all the major news channels before the internet have been perfecting this art for the past couple of decades. The author is not presenting an unbiased report of facts. He is presenting his own viewpoint DISGUISED as a neutral report. This report, coming from a "reputable" source like the WSJ is a great example of why the democratization of the publishing business is good for the public. There may be a lot of fluff out there, as he states, but the good stuff rises to the top.
  - jimbokun 18y ago
    "Have you ever stayed home from work for a day and watched CNN or Fox News?" I am almost certain these are the opinion channels to which he refers.

jimbokun 18y ago

What part was dismissive? I didn't get that sense at all. If anything, he seemed to be acknowledging that blogging is rapidly eclipsing his profession. It is true that a journalist can blog his stories, but I doubt that a significant amount of blogging is original reporting. The vast majority is probably opinion or analysis of one sort or another.

alanthonyc 18y ago
My initial read was a quick one on my phone, so I went back to make sure I wasn't wrong.... "This could make us the most noisily opinionated nation on earth." - Just a noisy opinion, in my opinion. "All this fits with the trend toward Opinion TV. Less and less of our information flow is devoted to gathering facts, and more and more is going toward popularizing opinion. Twenty-four-hour news channels have been replaced by 24-hour opinion channels. The chatter is the story." - Nice job fitting in another baseless stance around a fact simply to legitimize said opinion by proximity. Conveniently left unsaid is the fact that the "twenty-four-hour news channels" he holds up on a pedestal are themselves 24-hour opinion channels. Have you ever stayed home from work for a day and watched CNN or Fox News? "Bloggers make money if their consumers click the ads on their sites. Some sites even pay writers by the click, which is of course a system that promotes sensationalism, or doing whatever it takes to get noticed." - Again, assigning a label ("sensationalism") to blogs as if it didn't exist before blogs did. National Enquirer-type rags aside, all the major news channels before the internet have been perfecting this art for the past couple of decades. The author is not presenting an unbiased report of facts. He is presenting his own viewpoint DISGUISED as a neutral report. This report, coming from a "reputable" source like the WSJ is a great example of why the democratization of the publishing business is good for the public. There may be a lot of fluff out there, as he states, but the good stuff rises to the top.
- jimbokun 18y ago
  "Have you ever stayed home from work for a day and watched CNN or Fox News?" I am almost certain these are the opinion channels to which he refers.