the blogger vs mainstream media thing keeps following me

For some reason, my del.icio.us is absolutely overflowing with "bloggers vs mainstream media" links:

  • Niel McIntosh at CompleteTosh thought he had almost recovered from the debate which, not long ago, made him contemplate chewing his arm off in frustration. Then he points us towards….
  • this piece by Linda Jones for the Press Gazette titled "don’t be deluded, a blog does not a journalist make" which links to Graham…
  • Who pleads, over on the ScooptWords blog, that "bloggers be journalists, journalists be bloggers"
  • this whole thing, of course, really came to a head at the wemedia conference and the fringe event that I organised (with a bit of help) where Suw Charman let off a bit of steam with her presentation Why We Media Sucked
  • after which I had to comment

Dan Gillmor has usefully summarised recent (never ending) debate on western shores, where we find:

  • The dean of Columbia University’s School of Journalism, Nicholas Lemann, trying to stir things up the insightfully titled "Amateur Hour" in the NewYorker
  • which got Jeff Jarvis’ knickers in a twist
  • which led to Steven Berlin Johnson calling a truce, or something resembling one, by asking that anyone wishing to engage in the whole "bloggers vs journos" argument do so without raising one of the 5 points he says aren’t at all useful, from which he links to…
  • Jay Rosen’s attempt to end this all way back in January 2005

Funny thing is, someone just emailed to tell me that he’d spotted a post on CompleteTosh which links to a comment I made on Steven Berlin Johnson where I linked to the NewYorker piece which he’d been avoiding reading because he’s a subscriber and his copy doesn’t arrive until tomorrow.

Obviously, this is a debate that just keeps following a lot of us around…

Which reminds me of "The Bloggers":

<< update >>

Jeff Jarvis points us towards baristanet where Debbie Galant who offers up a juicy example of what Lemann missed and the bloggers got.

<<another update >>

Jay Rosen rejoins the fray – thoughtfully, incitefully, engagingly… and Jeff Jarvis spots Rebecca MacKinnon joining the fray

One Comment

  1. Hi Robin, I have responded to comments about my piece elsewhere but also just wanted to point out here that I didn’t see it as a shot in some on-going war of words on old media versus new. I was just arguing that a blog by an aspiring journalist isn’t the only means of getting cynical editors on side when they are seeking the first step up to a career in journalism.

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