Sunday, February 27, 2005
You're A Blogger, Bob. Get Over It.
If you've been following The Daily Howler lately, you've probably noticed that Bob Somerby, bless his heart, is getting a mite tetchy about those upstart lefty bloggers, some of whom have been moving in on his territory. (And one of those bloggers is associated with the fine media watchdog group Media Matters.) To that end, he's been ripping them up one side and down the other, most recently for their pursuit of two stories: The Bush Orwellian Newspeak Angle, wherein the use of the word "privatization" was banned in favor of first "private accounts", then "personal accounts"; and the Jim "Jeff Gannon" Guckert story. Let's set aside the fact that he's wrong to blow off the Jeff Gannon story. (For one thing, Bob, "Gannon"'s bogus stories were used by right-wing South Dakota operatives to attack the leading South Dakota newspaper and to help bring down Tom Daschle; for another, Gannon/Guckert was one of the shills paid to pimp privatization -- that's how we unmasked him in the first place). And let's ignore the fact that despite Bob's protestations, the words Bush uses to describe privatization DO matter. (See, Bob, the Republicans and their allies have since at least 2002 banned the use of the P-word so that they can claim to be against "privatization" but for "private" or "personal accounts" -- which are the same damned thing as privatization. Why is that so hard for you to figure out? Is it because you didn't think of it?) Let's set all of that aside for a moment. Sit down, Bob, because this is going to shock you. The fact is, Bob, that according to the lights of a lot of people, and the accepted definitions of the blogosphere, You. Are. A. Blogger. Shall I repeat that? You. Are. A. Blogger. You write periodic pieces for your own website. Guess what? That makes you a blogger. Now, according to my definition, you're not, since you don't allow comments on your pieces on your website. The true heart of bloggery, in my opinion, is the interaction between the blogger and the blog's readers. Someone like Atrios can post something at ten o'clock in the morning, get feedback at ten-fifteen that corrects it, and he'll then fix the post at ten-forty-five -- but make it an obvious fix, and credit the commenter who corrected him. But I'm not the rest of the blogosphere, so guess what, Bob? You're a blogger. Get over it.
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