May 22nd, 2008
The Buzz in the Blogosphere: Two Points to Bear in Mind
I know better than to respond to this kind of low-rent mudslinging. Really, I do.
I know better than to add my two cents’ worth after Will Leitch, Orson Swindle, and MaconDawg, as well as SG Standard, Joel, and HornsFan (you know . . . some of those dastardly blog commenters we hear so much about!), already have said all that needed to be said.
Nevertheless, I will add my voice to the chorus for the purpose of making two points which bear enunciating and reiterating. These are they:
1. The blogger and the beat reporter, like the farmer and the cowman, should be friends. The traditional media are not the enemy. We in the blogosphere must take special care not to lump all professional journalists together; if we do so, we are guilty of the same bigotry as the Buzz Bissingers of the world.
Although some cracks are appearing in the perceived barrier between the two roles, it generally is the case that professional news outlets are getting interviews, breaking stories, and publishing box scores, fulfilling essential functions we in the blogosphere could not (and, typically, do not aspire to) replicate.
Likewise, the search for commentary and analysis increasingly is turning to the blogosphere, but this loss of readership is suffered not by full-time reporters, but by the punditocracy that knows its fifteen minutes of fame are on the verge of expiring. Bissinger is aware of this and he is reacting the way fans of The New Yorker did to Tom Wolfe’s incisive and witty takedown of the moribund magazine a generation ago.
Bissinger knows full well, or ought to know if he is anything other than ignorant and wholly lacking in self-awareness (which certainly could be the case), that condescending pundits in the Stewart Mandel mode are every bit as self-appointed and lacking in valid credentials as the bloggers upon whom he heaps his disdain with such vitriol. Which brings me to my second point:
Tags: bissinger, braylon, buzz, edwards