Blogging on blogging

I liked Ed Kemmick's Weekend Update post, in part because I, too, broke out the hammock for the first time this weekend and in part because I, too, found the Garry Wills column (thanks to Jackie Corr) brave, thoughtful and all-around wonderful. Ed also comments on the phenomenon I mention here: The further away you get from blogging, the smaller it looks.

In Ed's comments, a couple of people point out that traditional media people have little use for bloggers. I think there is truth in that, although I don't mean to speak for others. But I think it's fair to say that even alternative weeklies are now part of "traditional media."

The usual reasons bloggers give for the antipathy of traditional media are:

1. Media have never been held accountable before and now they don't like it. This is hokum. In the quarter-century I have spent in the news business, my phone number always has been in the book. People have always been able to call me at 3 a.m. to tell me what a lousy job I'm doing, and sometimes they do. Papers I've edited have printed thousands of letters to the editor, hundreds of them disagreeing with something we've said or done.

2. Bloggers fact-check our asses, and we don't like it. Some do, some of the time. But most media criticism on blogs is of such low and redundant quality that reading it is a waste of time. One recurring theme: If you ever read a news story about yourself or about a topic with which you are intimately familiar, you always find inaccuracies and frequently find that that the whole take is wrong. That's the feeling I get when I read most blogging critics: They have no clue.

3. The old media are dying because bloggers are killing them, and they don't like it. Probably some truth in this; these are tough times to be in the news business. But I don't really see any bloggers doing what newspapers do. Perhaps someday they will.

I think the real reasons traditional media don't much care for bloggers are more like this:

1. Lack of accountability. I stand behind everything I write and always have. Most bloggers (or at least commenters) hide behind anonymity.

2. One criticism of journalists is that they are a step removed from real life. They observe, comment, ask questions and write. They don't DO. But most bloggers are even a further step removed. They don't go to meetings, don't go to car accidents, don't confront people they will make look bad in print. If the world holds journalists in contempt, they can now pass along that contempt to bloggers.

3. Blogger triumphalism. So tired.

4. Confronting blogging forces traditional media to refight old battles. There was a reason why, many years ago, most newspapers quit running anonymous letters to the editor. Those letters destroyed civil discourse. There was a reason why most newspapers didn't explain themselves very well to their readers. Self-absorption is an addiction best treated cold turkey.

5. Lack of civility. People who want to criticize my newspaper work have to look me in the eye, talk to me on the phone, or attach their name to a letter. Dealing directly with other humans makes people be nice. Those restraints vanish on the web. When morons like Bill Quick can label traditional media as traitors with no real fear of recrimination, then you don’t have a conversation. You have a brawl.

UPDATE: Just want to make it clear that the above are general comments about a general phenomenon. The list of bloggers for whom I have personal admiration and respect would be too long to include here.