The honesty of youth
: In the Bloggercon panel on blogging and presidential politics, the 19-year-old Bob Graham blogger, Joe Jones, says:
Policy doesn’t matter…. Weblogs are a way to create community, to create buzz.”
The honesty of youth or the cynicism of youth? Either way, I think the guy’s right.
What came first: The navel or the gaze
: I wonder: When TV and radio (and, for that matter, newspapers and magazines) were invented, did they all have conferences wondering what they were?
: A gem from the comments:
As we scientists say: Blogs are the only medium that can praise itself simply because the audience is the producer and vice versa.
Big boys & blogs
: Len Apcar, editor-in-chief of NYTimes.com, is asked at Bloggercon what would happen if a higher-up said someday that everyone at the Times could/would/should get a blog. He didn’t take it as bait. He said that after a few “hard slides” yet to come, he sees it as possible, at leas for the writers who have “more license:” op-ed columnists, critics, editorial-board members.
: Jay Rosen gives Apcar some suggestions. Apcar said he’s considering what to do with blogs and the campaigns. Rosen says he should use not only people from the Times, who know journalism, but also people from weblogs, who know blogging. He suggests someone just blog the campaign after dark, another just blog campaign fashion, another campaign just booze. Apcar handles the volley well but says, well, it’s not that easy at The Times.
Shoulda, coulda, woulda
: There’s a dust-bunny storm brewing in this, our neighborhood, over the idea that a blogger “should” say this or that.
Ed Cone went after Glenn Reynolds over the CIA scandal on his blog and then went after him again today at Bloggercon, expecting –no, demanding — that Glenn say more (and say the “right” thing) about it. (It was the more tiresome part of the panel; it almost turned into Plame panel.)
Over at Roger Simon’s blog, a commenter (the first one) goes after Roger, Michael J. Totten, and me for being Bush apologists because… well, go read it yourself. It’s really because we didn’t agree with him.
Back at Bloggercon, Oliver Willis (whom I’m delighted to finally meet in person) complained that various bloggers (I’m guessing I’m in that pool) don’t reveal their prejudices.
I talked about this with Glenn after his Plame “piling on” and we agreed that a weblog is nothing but a list of our prejudices.
When someone says that we “should” say something, that just means that we don’t agree with them.
Blogging and journalism
: Jay Rosen of NYU, just said that the really radical thing going is is this:
“The audience doesn’t exist anymore… Readers — the people you called readers for 500 years — are now writers.”
Right. And I’m very frustrated trying to figure out what to call “us” now. “Audience” isn’t right; they only receive. “Populist” is my current choice but it’s a bit loaded. Nominations? Coinage?
A few other quotes:
: Josh Marshall on his blog vs. his paid writing gigs: “I’m much more invested in my web site than in any of those other things that pay me.”
: Glenn Reynolds on newspapers that fear links to outside sites: “This keep-people-on-your-site thing reeks of Ted Baxter insecurity…”
Bloggerdiscon
: Big network problems at Bloggercon (Harvard’s fault); thus the lack of posting. Up for a brief gulp of network air now….
So near yet so far
: I was dying to finally meet Hoder, the blogger who started the Iranian blogging revolution, at BloggerCon but it’s not to be:
I’m so sad that I can’t make it to BloggerCon in Harvard this weekend, although, thanks to Jeff Jarvis and Dave Winer, a free ticket was waiting for me there.The reason? I still haven’t got my Canadian citizenship and have to use my Iranian passport, which, you know, is worse than not having a passport at all! The U.S. embassy in Canada needs at least three months to issue a visa for me as an Iranian citizen, for which I have to do a personal interview as well. (The same thing has stopped many Iranian filmmakers to enter the U.S recently.)
That’s funny, because I’m missing the BloggerCon for the same reason I was invited: I am Iranian.
