Sometimes I think the whole “old media vs. new media” is overblown. Then I read things like Al Martinez (LA Times columnist) giving his description of the blogosphere:

Since then I have learned that, with some notable exceptions, blogs are largely the habitat of unemployed writers, enraged misanthropes, retired teachers, aging journalists and people who normally pass their time doodling or making obscene telephone calls.

Okay, he’s nailed us pretty good (enraged misanthropes), but this would appear to be a rather broad generalization from a guy who clearly does not get it. Says Patterico:

I guess I could say with equal accuracy that newspaper columnists are, with some notable exceptions, people who get paid far too much money to write frivolous nonsense in a disdainful tone about things they know almost nothing about.

Patterico also highlights this Martinez comment:

The term [blog] is a short way of saying Web log and is thought to be the modern version of a person who keeps a diary, the difference being that a diarist rarely runs around shoving his words in everyone’s face. The computer allows one to do just that in a sense, to hurl messages at us whether we want them or not.

Someone needs to walk Martinez through the process by which blogs are created and then accessed by readers who chose whether or not to read them. Short of using “pop-up windows” to syndicate blog posts, there is simply no way to “hurl” messages at people. Believe us when we say that if this was a Feedburner option Independent Sources would be already using it like monkeys fling dung.

Would it be too much to think that the Times might embrace the new world of blogging instead of treating it like the record companies treated Napster (to their own peril I might add)? A recent Pew study showed that 57 million Americans are reading blogs. Might this be a little too big of an audience to ignore? Maybe someone should ask the new guy from Chicago.

tags: la times los angeles times LA Times al martinez

This entry was posted on Monday, October 9th, 2006 at 9:02 pm by Insider and is filed under Los Angeles Times. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.