Doc Searls on blogging vs. journalism
After the recent Forbes:Attack of the Blogs article,the blogosphere exploded in discussionabout the article. Perhaps this was DanLyons intended effect afterall, like yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre. Ten dayslater, the hue and cry has mostly passed, though I am still getting pingsand mails ("Did you know you were in Forbes magazine?"). Atthis point, while I don't think my dad has seen it yet, a lot ofothers have. There have also been some interesting comments aboutthe printedition , the criticismof the Lotuscommunity, and a notable omission.The various blogs covering the story included DocSearls. He and I hadan offline e-mail conversation about the story, and about his collectionof links, which included many other blogs--but initially not mine. Searlsgraciously updated hislinks to include my blog entry. In his e-mail back to me, he wrote:I think thereis also something about blogging that gets scant credit: provisionalism.Non-finality. While conventional journalism tends to be homiletic and conclusive("this is so, and I've done the research to prove it"), bloggingjournalism is often provisional ("this seems to be so... what do therest of ya'll think?").This is a huge and powerfulthought. Journalists write as if they get one shot to tell the story. They might write follow-ups, but a "mainstream media" articletends to be written to stand alone, to represent a complete picture, andto answer as many general questions as possible. This was certainly the case with Attack of the Blogs. I note with interest(though not conclusively) that an IP address Mr. Lyons was using has notrevisited my website once since the article was published. Theblogosphere reaction to the story comes in more like Letters to the Editor-- Forbes has likely received more than a few on this story -- but thatdoes not mean that the original writer is reading the responses. Muchof the mainstream media still does not believe in the self-correcting natureof blogging -- I doubt we'll see a follow-up story in Forbes a year fromnow. Bloggers realize they have an accountability to their readers that is differentthan mainstream media. I'm not talking about some of the blogs thathave become online magazines, but rather name-brand bloggers. Searlscaptured this thought in his e-mail, too, as he describes the "sovereignnature" of a blog:My blog is my domain. It is theunfiltered (except by myself) source of what I alone think and say. Beforeblogging, we didn't have that.If an individual bloggerwrites a one-sided story, he/she can expect to be criticized for it --either on their own site or on other blogs. They can expect theircredibility to take a hit. They can expect their readership to change(in most cases, to drop). In this particular instance, one of the fascinating things is how the mainstreammedia and the blogging world have actually combined synergistically. WhileForbes readers may not see the rest of the story printed in the magazine,they can on the web -- even on Forbes.com. Without a trace of irony,Forbes publisher RichKarlgaard started bloggingthe week after this article ran. I'm quite proud of the fact thathe was immediately challengedby oneof the Lotus community (youknow, those who were described as "sickos" in the story) forthe obvious conflict. Searching on the titleof the article and the article'sauthor reveals a huge buildupof sovereign voices dissecting and deconstructing the article. Ihave seen a bunch of those searches land here on edbrill.com. Notonly is the article not being taken at face value, the characterizationof the players within it, including myself, isn't either. And thus,powerfully, the one-sided nature of a traditional journalist's articlehas been revealed and deflated-- by the very technology being attacked.
