Matt Welch really caught the cultural difference between weblogs and traditional media when he told EPN World Reporter that with weblogs,
All readers are urged to create their own sites — think about that: this is a medium that by definition encourages readers to establish competing media. That’s awesome and wonderful, I think. Glenn Reynolds, about a month ago, asked people to e-mail him if they had started blogs partially because of his own example. More than 200 people mailed in. When’s the last time any publication or writer encouraged 200 people to start publications within six months?
That just really captures what is best about the weblog trend.
I was reading John Dvorak’s latest screed against weblogs in PC Magazine the other day. Dvorak was ridiculing weblogs with a guide to create a “perfect blog” which included using excessive jargon, bitching and whining when some other blogger doesn’t link to you, suck up to others in the weblog community, etc.
In the print version of PC Magazine, the reader turns the page after Dvorak’s piece and finds his “Inside Track” column, which of course is simply nothing more than Dvorak’s rumors and innuendos which he uses to alternately suck up to or bitch and moan about technology companies. The column features several goofy poses of Dvorak looking like a retarded John McLaughlin and phrases and words randomly appearing in bold.
What pisses off Dvorak is that weblogs make it possible for anyone to become a lousy hack if they so choose. The web rendered Dvorak’s schtick as a sort of technology pundit irrelevant, because plenty of people with weblogs fulfill that role much better than Dvorak does.
Not all traditional media folks react as negatively as Dvorak has, but enough of them do that it presents a fascinating look at what people in the media really think of their audience. Welch and others think one of the best things about weblogs is that almost anyone can start one and share their ideas and opinions with others.
To people like Dvorak, though, that’s a bug, not a feature.
Source:
The Welch Report – Go Publish Yourself EPN World Reporter, April 2002.