I was unimpressed by the chapter on “What’s a blog?” from Essential Blogging by Doctorow et al. But in a way, it was a good example of the chaotic, anything-goes motto that infests a lot of the blog world (and Internet in general).
To Doctorow’s credit, he does describe his site Boing Boing as eclectic and self-indulgent. But in a way, that’s exactly the problem with a lot of the blogs out there — even some of the ones that claim to offer real substance. Blogs like Doctorow’s only contribute to the proliferation of randomness and clutter. Sure, our lives can always benefit from a little levity, but that only makes our job of understanding blogworthiness and value much more challenging. The beauty of the Web is that it offers room for one all to participate in active discourse. But success in the blogshere, however, is determined by how it can elevate communication, not obscure it.
On the other hand, in the first six chapters of his book, We The Media, Dan Gillmor does a superb job of describing in an accessible and coherent way the status of journalism and the World Wide Web today.
Understading grassroots journalism and “citizen reporters,” as Gillmor describes, is important not only from the perspective of the shift in the consumer versus producer of news, but from where the future of the industry is headed. This trend, while positive and indicative of a new order in technology that demands more participation and inclusion of those who were once just consumers, has many pitfalls. Sure, some grassroots journalists may become professionals, but the ones who aren’t as invested or trustworthy, will certainly affect the work of the professionals negatively. Fact-checking is a point comes to mind. How can we determine which information is reputable and which isn’t? Another problem is determining what’s self-promotion and what’s altruism. Our celebrity-driven society has much for which to be blamed. An example of what can arguably be seen as a self-promotion vehicle is Mark Cuban’s blog, the Dallas Maverick owner and billionaire.
But the most interesting part of Gillmor’s reading was the chapter on newsmakers. Gillmor rightly suggests that newsmakers in corporate, politics, journalism, and all other areas need to listen more attentively to what’s being communicated in the digital world and take part in the conversation. Gillmor’s solid advice and approach to blogging makes it easy to understand why the emergence of this medium is so important to newsmakers’ success. However, I still feel that the high praises of RSS and its effectiveness are not all clearly understood and conveyed by news producers or consumers. Having all information you care about combined in one reader that checks for new updates is indeed a fantastic and time-saving way to stay current. But it’s also very limiting. Many sites of interest still don’t syndicate valuable content so the consumers still have to surf the Web diligently for the news and updates they need. So RSS, as it currently exists, still leaves a lot to be desired.
