I am blogging this
Ah, Christie Blatchford. Please, for the love of god, keep writing extended babbles like this if it means you'll run out of words that much sooner.
Okay, that was mean. But it's hard not to be a little bit mean after reading Blatchford's paean to "journalism as I know it," which mostly seems to involve a high priesthood of eloquent and erudite journalists delivering their pronouncements from on high to the ignorant rabble, who can only accept unquestioningly this pre-filtered news, and periodically write aesthetically-pleasing letters to stroke the journalist's tender ego.
(See? Mean.)
You've gotta love the assertion that commenting on journalism (or on anything) is somehow akin to self-diagnosis. Because journalism is brain surgery, you see. And it's important not to let anyone who isn't fully qualified participate in the written word.
Christie ultimately gives herself away when she starts grumping about "journalism wasn't meant to be a conversation". She doesn't want to be accountable to anyone but her editor for what she writes, and the idea of the public commenting on her deathless prose gives her hives. That's what bothers her, more than blogging per se.
And I disagree, strongly, that "we all have a limited number of things to say". Intellectual exchange (conversation!) is what generates more things to say, and blogging is as much a part of that process as the traditional (slower) method of exchanging letters in a magazine or newspaper.
The exchange of ideas is a good thing, even if -- especially if! -- it exposes us to different perspectives from those we're used to. The Internet is making that exchange easier and faster than ever before, and Blatchford's nostalgia for the days of yore when being a journalist was a distinction can't change that.
Okay, that was mean. But it's hard not to be a little bit mean after reading Blatchford's paean to "journalism as I know it," which mostly seems to involve a high priesthood of eloquent and erudite journalists delivering their pronouncements from on high to the ignorant rabble, who can only accept unquestioningly this pre-filtered news, and periodically write aesthetically-pleasing letters to stroke the journalist's tender ego.
(See? Mean.)
You've gotta love the assertion that commenting on journalism (or on anything) is somehow akin to self-diagnosis. Because journalism is brain surgery, you see. And it's important not to let anyone who isn't fully qualified participate in the written word.
Christie ultimately gives herself away when she starts grumping about "journalism wasn't meant to be a conversation". She doesn't want to be accountable to anyone but her editor for what she writes, and the idea of the public commenting on her deathless prose gives her hives. That's what bothers her, more than blogging per se.
And I disagree, strongly, that "we all have a limited number of things to say". Intellectual exchange (conversation!) is what generates more things to say, and blogging is as much a part of that process as the traditional (slower) method of exchanging letters in a magazine or newspaper.
The exchange of ideas is a good thing, even if -- especially if! -- it exposes us to different perspectives from those we're used to. The Internet is making that exchange easier and faster than ever before, and Blatchford's nostalgia for the days of yore when being a journalist was a distinction can't change that.