Blog v. Journalism "Babble"
Ron Steinman is causing quite a stir in blogging circles with his rant against blogs as journalism in the latest issue of The Digital Journalist. By trotting out many of the old arguments (no one's in control, how do you manage the torrent of babbling information, etc.), he sets himself up to be shot down by people like Steve Rubel at MicroPersuasion
or Peter Caputa.
And while I think Caputa has some good ideas about how to tackle some of the problems Steinman suggests, everyone is talking past each other, it seems. Steinman does raise important issues about accuracy and the amount of time needed to tame the information beast. For blogging and any other new forms to be truly useful, they must address these points.
Along that line, while you're at The Digital Journalist, look at the article by Terry Heaton on TV News in a Postmodern World: The Busine$$ of RSS. If the new type of aggregator he describes becomes widespread, journalism and other media could well be in for some serious changes.
posted by Doug @ 8:38 PM
1 comments|
1 Comments:
It's true that as savaged as aggregators (read newspapers and the networks) have been -- and rightly so in many cases -- they perform a service. Caputa's got interesting ideas for ways of doing some of this electronically, but while that's a partial help, I don't think it's the total answer. The fuzzy logic of human judgment is an amazing thing and, I find, quite useful in helping me sift through these things daily. I'd perhaps like to sample four or five good human-driven aggregators than try to wade through the torrent of blogs and other information trying to fashion "a truth."
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