July 31, 2005

More Blogging About A Blog About News Media Blogging

I and Jeff Jarvis have differing opinions about a commentary by Bob Cauthorn on the mainstream media and blogging. After you read the essay and my and Jarvis' response, be sure to also check out Bob Krumm's take on things.

As the likes of CBS and the New York Times rightly see themselves diminished at the hands of bloggers, it's only natural for the msm to either lash out at their attackers, or to believe that if you can't beat 'em, you must join 'em. However, they can't come down to the level of the blogger without being taken even less seriously. To do so diminishes them.

The reverse is also true. Bloggers do not get to be journalists. That's not to say that at a certain level a blogger can't evolve (or devolve, as the case may be) into a journalist. However, to do so means that he leaves behind the freedom of the blog: the freedom to be partial, the freedom to be wrong, and the freedom to engage interactively in conjecture and analysis.

It's the interaction that makes a blog a blog. Everyone comes to the web an equal and anonymous voice. The power of position is gone. The blog reduces each individual to the power of his arguments alone. The blog's leveling effect can leave the media superstar intellectually naked as it elevates the homeless bum into a philosophical genius.

Jarvis is partly right, by the way, and so is Cauthorn, and so am I. Oh, and the redesign of Jarvis' BuzzMachine blog rocks.

P.S. The Cauthorn commentary cites KRON's new The Bay Area is Talking project as one of the few instances where Big Media is doing blogging right. You should know that KRON's project is modeled after NashvilleIsTalking.com. WKRN was first.

Originally posted at NIT, July 30