Some of us are, as you might guess, fans of the whole concept of blogging and the people who write them.
And then there are others who think the process is not so great.
For example, one writer for the Wall Street Journal says that live blogging, the “play-by-play” coverage of a personal event is an “assault on privacy and discretion”.
She has other disparaging things to say about the process of posting to a blog from mobile devices.
The instant updates are the latest manifestation of today’s tell-all society in which memoirs dominate the nonfiction best-seller lists. While proponents say live blogging helps them experience an event more fully and provides a nice souvenir, the postings can often disrupt the event, get scant traffic and annoy those dragooned into reading them. And that says nothing of the feelings of a person who might not relish the notion of her maternity-room utterances or wedding vows being instantly blasted into cyberspace.
Then there are some journalists who believe blogs are nothing more than a “parasitic medium”, with the bloggers taking unfair advantage of their hard work.
However, a writer for the Online Journalism Review says those folks are just not seeing the whole story.
Still, the charge riles me every time I hear it. To me, it’s a poorly informed insult of many hard-working Web publishers who are doing fresh, informative and original work. And by dismissing blogs as “parasitic,” newspaper journalists make themselves blind to the opportunities that blogging, as well as independent Web publishing in general, offer to both the newspaper industry and newspaper journalists.
I wanted to hear what other Web professionals I respect thought. So I e-mailed several bloggers, academics and newspaper editors. No one who I’ve heard make the charge responded. But others replied with insightful remarks.
He received some great comments that point to just how much the “mainstream media” is changing, even if some of the people working there don’t understand that.
Of course, blogs are not necessarily good or bad. As with any other communications tool, it all depends on how it’s used.