Commenting Without An Identity

Anonymous comments on a blog are so lame. If you have something to say, then you should have accountability for your actions. As an anonymous commenter, there is no credibility in your words- no matter how good they may be. I just finished reading an article by Allan Hoffman from The Star Ledger on commentators. It's titled: " Commenters steal the bloggers' show."

He starts off by writing: " If you want to find lively and intelligent conversations online, you've got to head to a Weblog, or blog." Why is he talking down to his readers like they've never heard of blogging.

To top it off, on a post about commenting on blogs, you can't comment on his. Wake up NJ.com. Commentators on blogs don't steal the show they add to it. It's quite obvious they would steal the show if NJ.com allows comments. I guess that's why they don't.

Another gem is when he writes: "Bloggers also try to hypercharge their blogs by encouraging comments." Hypercharge? So what he's saying is that a blogs content is mediocre unless you have a brilliant commentator. Hey Allan, it's about exchanging thoughts and ideas. I know it's a new concept for you "Old Media" types, but guess what? It's the present and the future of media. The old stream media doesn't like to share their powers, but Pandora's Box has been opened. By reading this article, you would swear it was coming from a developing nation that wasn't too up on technology. Here's a tip for his next article: Typing Steals The Written Word

Bloggers Are Winning

By Joe Caruso


Running Scared

Bloggers continue to Kick-The-A** of the old-stream media. In a recent article by Michael Skube, it becomes clear that this man hates bloggers. I chuckled when I read his musings. "No man but a blockhead," the stubbornly sensible Samuel Johnson said, "ever wrote but for money." Well I can throw in a Thomas Jefferson quote- "The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." – Thomas Jefferson

He then goes on to say "the blogoshpere is the loudest corner of the internet, noisy with disputation, manifesto-like postings and an unbecoming hatred of enemies real and imagined. What's this guy smoking? The "Old Media" is filled with hatred, noisy disputation, and "manifesto-like rants.

Speaking of hatred, he shows contempt for Southerners by recalling a story by Claude Sitton. "He recounted the time in Philadelphia, Miss., when "a few rednecks -- drunk, shotguns in the back of their truck -- showed up at the Holiday Inn where Fleming and I were staying." The locals invited the big-city reporters -- Sitton from the Times, Fleming from Newsweek -- to come out and see the farm. "I told 'em, 'Look, you shoot us and there'll be a dozen more just like us in the morning. You going to shoot them too?' "

Divided We Fall

"Old Media" guys like Michael Skube are familiar with the concept of "Divide and Conquer". Instead of embracing "New Media", people like him are threatened by it.
Blogging and New Media are still in it's infancy. It's revolutionary that consumers of media can not only offer feedback, but actually create it. I say don't change journalism, just change the definition and include blogging and new media. "Old Media" is filled with Book Critics, Food Critics, Music Critics and of course the bias that goes into many stories in newspapers, magazines and TV. Smart bloggers are not only going head-to-toe with established writers, but sometime out-delivering them. Bloggers are giving their honest (generally) feelings and are not being paid, wine & dined by any publishers or restaurants. etc;

Skube laments- "But what lodges in the memory, and sometimes knifes us in the heart, is the fidelity with which a writer observes and tells. The word has lost its luster, but we once called that reporting."

Fidelity= adherence to fact or detail.

So this guy thinks that only a paid writer working for the 'old stream media 'can stick to facts? What a pompous fool. And he's blaming blogging for the "fall of the word". If anything, blogging has increased the power of the word more than anything since Gutenberg.

The really good journalist out there get it- they're not threatened by bloggers. Embrace the "New Media" or get left in the dust. It's that simple...