Blog Times
: Glenn Reynolds suggests that The New York Times replace retiring William Safire with a rotating stable of bloggers (no horseshit jokes, please). I agree: Let the citizens be heard. And I’ll throw my saddle into the ring.
27 responses to “Blog Times”
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“(no horseshit jokes, please)”
I think of something else entirely when I think of “a stable,” but I guess we’ll see if anybody gets turned out. -
I wouldn’t mind a little writing gig myself. I am a famous writer well known throughout my whole family. How much money can I expect to make for blogging in my pajamas and using the CBS model for effective, factual and truthful reporting?
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I don’t understand this flow of bloggers into mainstream media? How does appearing on cable news shows and printing columns in NYT help blogging? Sure, you get to advertise your site, but it seems more like the media appropriating your efforts to their own gain. At some point they’ll stop calling, and your 15-minutes will be up.
And why should bloggers be given any special consideration when it comes to column inches in the OpEd pages. Just becuase you have a website? I have ideas too, and just becuase I decide to communicate them interpersonally rather than via the Web doesn’t mean I’m any less entitled.
Don’t get me wrong – I think blogging is cool. I read quite a few, and they’re a great way to spread information (both good and bad). But I don’t see why bloggers should be rushing to get themselves in print, since that’s the medium they often seem to try to subvert. -
True — If bloggers are integrated into the mainstream media, that means eventually they’ll be considered to have a “publisher” or “editor.” Both of these elements have their own opinions, and tend to change or throw away things that don’t conform. The whole idea of blogging is to convey thought and fact without those overbearing elements getting in the way.
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Good idea if the columns are done as “simulcasts” and serve to introduce more people to the idea of the blogosphere as a place where you can talk about ideas that move you, and find a lot more detail on issues if you want to pursue a more comprehensive understanding.
Bad idea if NYT or anyone else wants to co-opt instead of including. In other words, if this is a step towards more recognition of the value (and limits, too) of the role of the blogosphere, fine. But if it changes the nature of the conversation and places valued independent voices on the other side of the wall, count me out. -
“But I don’t see why bloggers should be rushing to get themselves in print, since that’s the medium they often seem to try to subvert.”
Because they think they can do it better? (That might be the answer to all your other concerns as well.) -
I agree, Angus, but citizens already have opportunities to write letters to the editor and submit their own op-ed columns at will. If blogging is the “citizen’s media” making connections and building trust as often described on this site, then why is it necessary to lobby for space on a paper-based, uni-directional, etc, etc, medium?
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The good thing about bloggers (as opposed to more-traditional columnists) is that as readers we can IMMEDIATELY send “you’re a nut” feedback to them via email. This lack of a postal delay has many benefits, and causes the nuts to take more care in what they write, IMO.
One of Ray’s Laws (there are lots!) is: “The relative cluefulness of a journalist writing about the internet is inversely proportional to how-easy-to-contact he/she is.” This law-of-cluefulness has held true since I thought it up in 1993 — through a blizzard of media-cluelessness about the ‘net, and it’s likely to hold up for the rest of time whether or not it ever becomes as famous as Godwin’s Law…
JMR -
Michael,
“How does appearing on cable news shows and printing columns in NYT help blogging?
Is it supposed to? Why should it have to?
“…why should bloggers be given any special consideration when it comes to column inches in the OpEd pages.”
One quick reason: Bloggers have a readily available publication history. If I’m the “OpEd Editor,” wondering whether some blogger might be suitable for a long-term gig, reading the blogger’s archives can give me a pretty good idea. Can’t say that for J.Random Citizen with nothing in print.
“…just becuase I decide to communicate them [ideas] interpersonally rather than via the Web doesn’t mean I’m any less entitled.”
Got something to say? Go for it: “The Op-Ed page welcomes unsolicited manuscripts… For further information, call (212) 556-1831” — NY Times Note to Readers
“But I don’t see why bloggers should be rushing to get themselves in print, since that’s the medium they often seem to try to subvert.”
Don’t assume everybody’s out to destroy the existing media. First, it will be around for a while, in any case. Second, why impose a purity test on a writer whose first goal may simply be to reach an audience. Roger Simon runs a weblog and also writes books (the ultimate one-way communication). Got a problem with that? And many bloggers aren’t full-time pundits. Is bringing a greater diversity of voices to the existing press a bad thing?
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“And why should bloggers be given any special consideration when it comes to column inches in the OpEd pages.”
The prior history of writing on a regular basis is a plus.
Writing talent is not born solely from journalistic endeavors. Engineers, teachers (Stephen King), doctors (Michael Crichton), US Marines (Dr. Thomas Sowell), insurance salesmen (Tom Clancy), poor single moms (J.K. Rowling), and all sorts of other people have come from non-literary backgrounds and eventually found their way into the world of writing.
Using a rotation of bloggers sounds like an outstanding idea as it gives exposure to a more broad diversity of ideas. Instead of one opinion four times a week, you get a dozen opinions once a week. Diversity of opinion is still supposed to be a good thing, right??
And finally, because the NYTimes is a hidebound, old world giant that needs to be shaken up a bit. Perhaps some outside opinions covering previously ignored facts and positions would be just the thing to return the NYT from it current, philosophically inbred “all the news that we see fit to print” status to its former “all the news that is fit to print” status.
Regards, -
“because the NYTimes is a hidebound, old world giant that needs to be shaken up a bit. Perhaps some outside opinions covering previously ignored facts and positions would be just the thing to return the NYT from it current, philosophically inbred “all the news that we see fit to print” status to its former “all the news that is fit to print” status.”
Anything printed on the NYT’s Op-Ed page will require review by the editorial staff. Previously ignored facts and positions are already present in the variety of op-ed pieces, but only to the extent as the editors allow. Having a blogger appear on that page won’t change that.
My point is, why bother with this “hidebound, old world giant” when a blog is (supposedly) much better at communicating, creating conversations, fact-checking, and empowering citizens. It just seems sorta contradictory to make all these claims about why blogs are a superior over MSM, and then see bloggers push and shove to get into a print column or face time on CNBC. -
This is easily the stupidest idea I’ve heard this year. And it’s late in the year.
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I agree with Emily. Besides, this is just another example of the right whingers only wanting to turn a leftwing publication into yet another insipid right wing echo chamber.
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That’s funny, because the near entirety of the left-wing is an “echo chamber.” You crawl and moan like zombies when people don’t vote your way, and it’s all the same. “I’m sorry, world! We love you, France! BUSH = HITLER!”
Echoes -
My blog has been “simulcasting” in The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y., and at syracuse.com at http://www.syracuse.com/newslogs/newstracker/
As blogs go, it’s relatively sedate, but for a newspaper, it pushes editors and readers to pay attention to blogging and bloggers. That can’t be a bad thing, I figure. -
Michael-
Blogs are not superior to the MSM. They are different.
Blogs are different in ways that can be/should be of value to the MSM. Just as the MSM is of value to blogs.
No one wants the Grey Lady to fall (any further).
My interest in renewing the NYTimes commitment to fact is compassionate. Just as other people clamoring for social ‘change’ claim to be compassionate.
Regards, -
Michael-
Blogs are not superior to the MSM. They are different.
Blogs are different in ways that can be/should be of value to the MSM. Just as the MSM is of value to blogs.
No one wants the Grey Lady to fall (any further).
My interest in renewing the NYTimes commitment to fact is compassionate. Just as other people clamoring for social ‘change’ claim to be compassionate.
Regards, -
Michael doesn’t seem to realize that the owner of this blog has been a member of the “mainstream media” for a good bit of his career. He knows it as well as anybody. If he can become a “part of it” again under his own terms, I’m confidant that it would be at least as good as Safire’s stuff. If he is a part of a multi-blogger rotation, that would even be better (and he probably wouldn’t go it alone, anyway). At least it would not be the same old NYT/CBS/Kerry boot licker crap.
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Easycure, I’m well aware of Jeff Jarvis’ ties to big media. Your argument had merits until you digressed into the “Kerry boot licker crap” crap.
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We certainly would all be well-served if you, Mr. Jarvis, were to throw your saddle into that ring. I will keep hoping and will you please keep blogging!
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“If blogging is the ‘citizen’s media’ making connections and building trust as often described on this site, then why is it necessary to lobby for space on a paper-based, uni-directional, etc, etc, medium?”
Because an editorial carries more weight and will reach more readers than a letter to the editor? Again, I’m just taking shots in the dark here. -
“Because an editorial carries more weight and will reach more readers than a letter to the editor?”
I don’t disagree. My argument is that wanting to publish an op-ed seems to go counter to much of the rhetoric for why blogs are the quintessential citizen’s media.
Perhaps we should re-phrase this debate. What is the better effort for supporting & exanding the import of this citizen’s media: (a) self-publishing on a blog so that the blogosphere can read, link to, discuss, fact-check, etc your opinion; or (b) a blogger publishing her opinion on NYT’s op-ed page.
The obvious answer is (c) Both. But then a growing (and often ignored) inequity emerges in the blogosphere: suddenly this blogger becomes considered “more important” or “better” or, as you put it, carrying “more weight” than other bloggers. -
it’s a fine idea as long as it’s not column after column by a-list bloggers who have nothing different to say than any other jackhole on any other op-ed page.
i say give safire’s space to the kids. 24 yrs old and younger. and yes, a daily updated blog would be required. -
“My argument is that wanting to publish an op-ed seems to go counter to much of the rhetoric for why blogs are the quintessential citizen’s media.”
I can’t really figure out why you think that, but okay. Seems to me that publishing an op-ed is perfectly in keeping with the average blogger’s desire to A) Be read by as many people as possible, B) Beard the lion in his own den, and C) Get paid. But then, I’m no visionary. -
Angus is right. Getting read and getting paid would be good. Bother self-expression for its own sake. I blog to be read in the hopes of creating a vast audience that I could then exploit in my obsessive quest for money. Medium, schmedium.
Hope
http://humorhangout.blogspot.com/ -
While mostly not to my taste, Safire and others at the Times do some actual reporting in their columns now and then.
99.9999999% of bloggers don’t.
Our host here aside, a journalist, there are few I would deem ready for prime time.
The “citizens” already have an outlet for their voice to be heard in the LTE section, opinion pages, etc. -
Ah, Jeffo, the truth comes out. You really don’t yearn for your little place in the blogosphere; you’re mad because you were booted from a public place in the MSM and want it back.
You really think you’re NYTimes material? Heh.
