BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Recommended reading

3 comments on Recommended reading

Recommended reading
: Matt Welch just wrote the best overall piece on blogging that I’ve read. He did it for the Columbia Journalism Review. Great lead:

his February, I attended my first Association of Alternative Newsweeklies conference, in the great media incubator of San Francisco. It’s impossible to walk a single block of that storied town without feeling the ghosts of great contrarian media innovators past: Hearst and Twain, Hinckle and Wenner, Rossetto and Talbot. But after twelve hours with the AAN, a much different reality set in: never in my life have I seen a more conformist gathering of journalists.

3 responses to “Recommended reading”

  1. David Galbraith Avatar
    David Galbraith

    Matt’s article: http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/5/blog-welch.asp

  2. Bill Dennis Avatar
    Bill Dennis

    A visit to any high school could have explained this. All the non-conformists dress alike.

  3. button Avatar
    button

    This WAS a good article. My favorite part is where he says he’s developed an improbable group of colorful characters including a cranky Canadian as surfing favorites.
    “After two years of reading Weblogs…” I would agree that is one of the best parts of surfing the blogosphere.
    But there’s a second important point here too: “Thousands of amateurs are learning how we do our work…”
    Maybe not! I belonged to the Columbia J-School Student Press Association and was trained by them. But then they wouldn’t hire women to do the job in many cases. So, many of us are not exactly total amateurs…
    And a number of bloggers may be frustrated op-ed columnists who have been excluded from the arena of public debate by the newspapers gatekeepers.
    But don’t forget that dead tree paper is not unlimited and is actually quite expensive. Fortunately, there is probably more room for people to post their opinions on the net.