Supersize me
: Robert J. Samuelson calls blogs “the fast food of the news business.”
I prefer to think of us as the caterers, thank you.
12 responses to “Supersize me”
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Jeff,
Am at the NEXPO conference in Washington and have, for two days, heard many comments denigrating blogs, and none that reveal any real understanding. One chain paper online director, in a seminar on political coverage online, said “I have mixed feelings about blogs. They’re really just reporter’s notebooks.” But he crowed about how his political reporters are going to start doing blogs. Also, at the API Convergence Seminar on Friday, it was clear that most people there lumped all blogs into the “wacko fringoid, unedited, irresponsible” category. I get the feeling that my industry — newspapers — just isn’t getting this development, which I see as truly revolutionary in publishing. -
Actually I think the chain paper online director quoted above is pretty much spot on. And why is that a bad thing?
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If you have to explain it, you don’t get it. Reporter’s notebooks are just that, notebooks. Even they don’t get blogging. You can’t just put words onto a page and call it a blog and have it be a blog.
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@rivlax: is that sarcasm? a blog is whatever it wants to be.
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Hmmmm…. I take his point, however with the “erosion of objectivity” argument I’m always seeing, I can’t help read “the erosion of my long-term salary prospects” between the lines. Very Clay Shirky of me, eh?
Big Media is now doing what the Church Of England (The Anglican Church 1.0) has been doing for the last 100 years:
“Attendance keeps dropping. Must be something wrong with the congregation”. -
I on the other hand tend to think of blogs as the garbage bin behind the fast food outlet since most are filled with nothing but dirty, stinky trash and rats.
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Robert, why are you digging around in garbage bins?
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I prefer to think of blogs as “Good News Served Fast.”
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Robert, you left yourself wide open for this…. that sure describes your blog. (Now you play: “I know you are but what am I!”)
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I’ve been using a fast-food metaphor, but with this twist: blogs are mom-and-pop restaurants up against industrial fast-food corporate media chains.
The great news for everyone (who doesn’t work for a corporate media factory) — for once, the price advantage is on the side of mom-and-pop’s home-cooked deliciousity! -
So bloggers are Mcjournalists now. As long as diversity and transparency remain in the blogsphere I say supersize it. People are exercising a freedom the press has long enjoyed and abused.
Political media has already become “selective and slanted.” The problem is not the customers partisan tastes, it’s the establishments partisan menu. -
any and all media is biased and cant be anyother way, nor should it be. i cant fathom a “unbiased opinion” official or otherwise. i think its egocentric to believe that ones opinion is not slanted.you need to solicit as many opinions as possible w/o throwing up’this forum seems to fit that bill exactly.
