And You Thought The Blog Bashing By Journalists Went Out Of Style In 2004…
from the you-said-what-now? dept
We almost never mention stories about “blogging” or “bloggers” around here because, frankly, who really cares? There’s enough navel gazing going on out there, and unless there’s something really interesting and different to write about, it’s really just not worth it. And, while we’re pretty certain that the blogworld is about to have a field day with this new Forbes article that BoingBoing is pointing out, we’d recommend that it’s much better to just read it as a comedy piece (or maybe a drinking game). That’s about the only way I can figure it was approved to be written and published. It simply must be satire by an incredibly bored journalist. Honestly. My guess is that the author, Daniel Lyons, wrote the article pretending to take on the persona of the “bloggers” he then skewers — because it seems like he does every single thing in the article (and the sidebars) that he accuses “bloggers” (in general) of doing. So, let’s all just pretend that it’s satire and the Forbes’ editorial process didn’t really let this go in as a serious piece, and let it go. It had seemed like these sort of “condemn all bloggers” pieces had gone out of style about a year ago — but hats off to Lyons for reviving the genre with such… gusto.
Comments on “And You Thought The Blog Bashing By Journalists Went Out Of Style In 2004…”
Blog Bashing
Maybe we can hand out scratch cards and make a game out of it.
Realluy something to be laughed at?
Escuse, but this article made me scared. Maybe I don’t really know the situation in the US deep enough, but wouldn’t a piece such as this provide a formidable weapon against blogs in the hand of the neo-cons?
I’m worried about politicians saying things like “These blogs are the devil’s tools for bashing the holy American industries that are at the base of our wealth and happiness and can never really do anything bad, so anybody who tries to criticize them is performing anti-American activities and must be stopped with any means necessary”
I’m scared that if they build their case strong enough, people will start following them and approve of any limitation to forms of personal expression that can’t be controlled and sanctioned by the industries.
Am I over-anxious?
Re: Realluy something to be laughed at?
No, that kind of pro-industry authoritarianism is something they’d do in Europe or China. Neo-cons in America are primarily concerned with protecting the “freedom of expression”, to mean expressing pro-religious, anti-gay, anti-abortion, right wing points of view.
Re: Re: Realluy something to be laughed at?
What is ironic, considering the above two posts, is that the greatest threats to blogs will come from the left, who will be primarily interested in keeping political blogs, especially right-wing political blogs, quiet.
You’ll hear conservatives decry the content of blogs (like they decry the content of other media), but I have yet to hear the so-called NeoCons call for their outright ban. Liberals are the ones that constantly try to use the courts to shut down conservative voices.
Rob Miles
—
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don’t.
Re: Re: Re: Realluy something to be laughed at?
As an example, a couple of conservitive talk show hosts here in Washington state have been promoting a popular initiative on their radio. A judge ruled that the commentary counted as in-kind contributions and had to be counted by the group actually running the initiative. Due to contribution limitiations they had to go back to court in order to be able to continue to talk about a public policy issue on the radio. (all this while the local newspaper was openly against the initiative and didn’t have to count their commentary as contributions).
Re: Re: Re:2 Political politics
It’s important to point out that although I just skimmed the Forbes article, the author didn’t even try to hide that fact that the origination of his article stemmed from the fact that an apparent “good ole boy” acquaintance of the editor-in-chief (ie his boss) lost 15 million due to a “blog attack”.
I’d be calling in all my favors if I lost 15Mil….
Re: Re: Re:2 Realluy something to be laughed at?
As an example, a couple of conservitive talk show hosts here in Washington state have been promoting a popular initiative on their radio. A judge ruled that the commentary counted as in-kind contributions and had to be counted by the group actually running the initiative. Due to contribution limitiations they had to go back to court in order to be able to continue to talk about a public policy issue on the radio. (all this while the local newspaper was openly against the initiative and didn’t have to count their commentary as contributions).
Either you don’t know all the facts or you’ve decided to be disingenious when airing PNW dirty laundry out for the rest of the world to see.
The conservative talk show radio hosts were the ones who organized the initiative — it was their idea, they went through the motions of founding the appropriate political action committee in order to begin the initiative process. The court ruled from the point where they moved their initiative from discussion to action that their multi-show discussion of the initiative was a form of political advertising and subject to be reported as campaign contributions.
The local newspapers (and this includes the allegedly conservative Seattle Times) are against the initiative. They don’t have to count their commentary as contributions because they’re not spearheading any political action entity.
Re: Re: Re: Really something to be laughed at?
Oh, for crying out loud… spew your talking points elsewhere, don’t make this into a political battle. The fact of the matter is that any large, entrenched group is going to call for the silence and/or muting of any voices they disagree with. PERIOD. I don’t care which side of the aisle they’re on, or which letter they’d put after their name.
So really, please try not to make this out to be a big political thing when it’s not; it’s just an invective-spewing article on Forbes with no real basis in fact; anyone who’s READ groklaw.com, for instance, realizes that there’s plenty of very well-written pieces against SCO and its frivolous lawsuit on IBM.
And you, claiming in your sig to have some sort of geek cred, should know that.
Re: Re: Re:2 Really something to be laughed at?
? I think you’re in the wrong thread.
Re: Re: Re: Heh.
What is ironic, considering the above two posts, is that the greatest threats to blogs will come from the left, who will be primarily interested in keeping political blogs, especially right-wing political blogs, quiet.
Ah, yes. The vast left wing conspiracy, considering the power it has, will channel the fury of evil^H^H^H^H LBJ to shut the common man up, in the name of corporate interest. And they ate Harriet for breakfast, too. All in a day’s work. Watch out, man, they may abort you retroactively.
Good stuff.
Lyons has been peeved for a while
Dan Lyons has been attacking the Groklaw site for a long time, and I suspect that’s colored his view of all blogs. His statement in the article that Groklaw’s “origins are a mystery” is completely false. He and other journalists have been trying to prove for a while that Groklaw is secretly funded by IBM, but there’s no evidence of that. It’s run by one paralegal, Pamela Jones, who just happens to think that SCO’s an unethical company.
Read some of Lyons’ other articles. He’s full of invective and short on fact.
you are free to do as i tell you
who needs freedom of expression anyways?
china has the right idea, you know, arresting the dissidents and being kind enough to reprogram them to think the right way.
No Subject Given
“A blogger can go out and make any statement about anybody, and you can’t control it. That’s a difficult thing,”
– You see, this is what the problem is. Free speech can be used for good or evil. The fact you can’t control it (at least not yet) is a good thing. You cannot equate this to slander or even defaming, because its peoples personal opinion. Sure they can flat out lie and start rumors and network to try and take you out, but thats not any different than the same power the media has… Only problem is joe-blows blog may get more credibility. But hey, that why companies make the big bucks, so they can hire mercinaries from canada to take out legions of online dweebs right? Oh, hold on, sombodies at the door… be right ba
No Subject Given
“It had seemed like these sort of “condemn all bloggers” pieces had gone out of style about a year ago”
Nope. A year ago, everyone was giving bloggers pats on the back for being the “new wave of journalism.” Now the rose coloured glasses have come off and we’re seeing that a lot of blogs are just a)spam or b)pure unadulterated trash or even worse, c)malicious & full of lies.
Personally, I’m pretty sick of blogs, but Web 2.0 doesn’t look any better.
Re: No Subject Given
“Personally, I’m pretty sick of blogs”…
Um, like this one?
(Techdirt, winner of Forbes Magazine’s, Popular Science’s, and The Sydney Morning Herald’s “Best Technology Blog” awards)
Ive been searching for such resource for a long ti
I have done that, says my memory. I cannot have done that, says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually-memory yields.
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