\n| \n Another hot topic among the bloggers is the proliferation of "psuedo-blogs"
\n which are popping up all over Boston like acne on a teenager in a chocolate
\n factory. These "psuedo-blogs" come in many forms.<\/p>\n Much in evidence these days, of course, are politician’s blogs. Not
\n to be confused with political blogs, which are written by non-politicians,
\n amateur pundits and political junkies of all stripes and which comment
\n on and analyze politics.<\/p>\n Politician’s blogs are invariable created, written and maintained by
\n staff members of the great man (or woman) in charge, who of course is
\n much too busy to read any blogs, much less write one. But after
\n Howard Dean, andy politician with an ounce of sense or feel for the public
\n pulse knows he needs<\/em> a blog, even if he or she hasn’t a clue as to what
\n one actually is.<\/p>\nSo the wealthier one go out and hire an established blogger (or ‘Ho,
\n as they are informally known around the ‘Sphere) to create their blog. If
\n they are less affluent they just order one of their staffers to figure
\n out what a Blog is and then get one going.<\/p>\n These "blogs" are barely identifiable as such, consisting mainly of
\n crass shucksterism and recycled press releases. In addition there are
\n innumerable "psuedo-blogs" selling products, set up as part of advertising
\n campaigns, by bars or restaurants, or to solicit credit card numbers
\n in return for instant sexual gratification.<\/p>\n More difficult to categorize are the many many blogs being created by
\n the mainstream media organizations to try to "catch the wave of the happening
\n blogger phenomena". Most of these blogs were created in the past two
\n weeks and the odds of their surviving the election season are slim to
\n none. <\/p>\n Bloggers are reluctant to admit these journalistic blogs to their community
\n for a couple of reasons. For one, they are clearly professional
\n writers, and in fact part of the mainstream media.. They are getting
\n directly paid for writing their blogs, and bloggers are fiercely protective
\n of their amateur status (although somewhat contradictory they scheme
\n constantly about how to have a living from their blog and quit their
\n day jobs.<\/p>\n But more importantly, they are being edited. Even if the editor
\n only reads the stuff before, or even after, it gets posted, the fact
\n that one’s employers will be reading and evaluating one’s blogging does
\n change the basic nature of the endeavor. And in addition to editorial
\n control of content, there is the fact that the mere existence of an intermediary
\n agent violates the true essence of blogging – naked contact between the
\n blogger and the reader. The whole rush of the blogging experience is
\n that there is NOTHING BETWEEN the observer and the reader, and the impressions
\n are fresh and unadulterated,<\/p>\n We have been hanging, occasionally, with a blogger from the Philadelphia
\n Inquirer. He WAS a feature writer, until two weeks ago, when his
\n editor told him to start a blog and pack his bags for Boston. He
\n seems like a really nice guy, and he might get the point someday (at
\n which point he would probably start blogging about the Philadelphia
\n Inquirer rather than the Conventions his editor sends him to, and lose
\n his job, which would be a tragedy, but good blogging material).<\/p>\n Not only the prink media is desperately delving into the blogging pool. Reporters
\n from CNN, the New York Times, Fox and Sports Illustrated have started
\n blogging as well. Why is the traditional media suddenly so fascinated,
\n near obsessed, with the bloggers. It can;t be because we’re the most
\n interesting folks in town!<\/p>\n It is becoming increasingly clear to the Dowbrigade that it is because
\n they are scared. Well, not scared, exactly, but a little nervous
\n at least, and with some reason.<\/p>\n First, we are undocumented workers, threatening their jobs by working
\n for free, eroding the market for their product, and they resent the fact
\n that we haven’t "paid our dues", haven’t spent those hot summer nights
\n working the police beat in some urban cesspool or the frigid
\n 6 am Blizzard reports, and here we come waltzing in to take the choice
\n seats.<\/p>\n And second, we represent the first realistic threat in decades to expose
\n their cherished myth of objectivity. Most of the reporters we have
\n talked to honestly try to obtain the impossibly illusive objectivity,
\n but this merely ends up making their inevitable subjectivity more subtle
\n and difficult to detect.<\/p>\n What they have been feeding us for many years is one specific world
\n view and one consistent and usually coherent version of what the news
\n "means". All Bloggers aim to do is point out that
\n there are alternatives.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another hot topic among the bloggers is the proliferation of "psuedo-blogs" which are popping up all over Boston like acne on a teenager in a chocolate factory. These "psuedo-blogs" come in many forms. Much in evidence these days, of course, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1443],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esl-links"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |