This was not a contest between the best of 15,000 traditional journalists and the total output of a few dozen Web loggers. We were watching the start of an important learning process.
As a columnist who has advocated for and understood the genre, such as in his post-9/11 "When blogging came of age," Cooper's comments are ones to examine.
It was an experiment that would be expected to have normal ups and downs.
My main issue with his assertion that "blogging blew its big chance" is with his apparent premise that this was a head-to-head evaluation of similar products with a similar feature checklist. This was not a prize fight, and they weren't even going after the same prize.
Many have written about the special nature of blogging with its intimate, first-person style aimed at ongoing readers. I think that the DNC bloggers did a wonderful job, and I personally found their work quite valuable.
Even Rick Heller's "Clinton looks really small" quote was part of a longer observation that, together with the work of other bloggers, helped many of us better understand how traditional media works. Despite all this, how good they were is not what I want to talk about. I want to look at this as an advancement of a technology.
From my years of experience as a blogger, I have learned that blogging at an event is quite different from normal, daily blogging. Long, multiday events are the hardest. You have to learn how to do it.
While many bloggers are used to "covering" simple events like a technology conference, they are not used to covering an event that is also being covered by live television and thousands of paid journalists.
Bloggers are not used to covering an event that is also being covered by live television and thousands of paid journalists.
The DNC was a chance to start learning how blogging can fit into such a situation. It was an experiment that would be expected to have normal ups and downs. The "Hello, World!"-like first posts were reminiscent of any "Testing 1-2-3." The "I'm trying A, I'm trying B" mirrors test pilots.
The DNC situation lacked some of the scale aspects that have helped blogging, such as having gatekeepers and many participants (a few dozen is not that many in a genre that is used to hundreds of thousands).
Unlike traditional media, which tries to use a few people to get the big picture, blogging as an Internet phenomenon uses a large distributed population for that purpose. Blogging is aided by invented tools and techniques developed over many years. Some are simple, such as the original Blogger, while others are more complex, such as blog popularity engines like Blogdex and RSS readers. The blogging world will use the DNC experiment to invent tools and techniques for doing event blogging better.
Unlike most of the media, most of the bloggers did little preplanning of such tools and techniques. The few tools that were developed, like Dave Winer's ConventionBloggers.com, helped and will be improved. Most bloggers were too busy with logistics, dealing with how they'd handle pictures or find a hotel. Many wanted to just go and see what happens, which in the long run is probably good for experimentation.
Blogging is a different form of communication--not one to replace others, just as instant messaging is different from e-mail which is different from a phone call. We need to know how best to use blogging when an unscheduled natural or man-made disaster hits. We need to experiment in order to learn.
There aren't that many events on such a large scale with which to experiment. Let us salute the DNC for letting it happen here. Let's measure this as an experiment and not compare it to existing techniques that have had years to experiment. Certainly in that regard, the DNC blogging was very successful.
Biography
Dan Bricklin, co-creator of VisiCalc, is president of consulting and software firm Software Garden. He also maintains a blog.
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So, instead of attempting to make it a noble but flawed event where innocents were hanged, tell us what the lessons learned are, and start preparing for the next convention.
First, bloggers are like any other source: they should have identified what they needed to cover and where they would find it before they got there.
Two, credentials are not a piece of paper; they are the recognizability of a journalist, the trust that the journalist won't embarass or ambush an interviewee, and the background knowledge that enables an interviewer to lead the subject toward a topic. This isn't inner navel blogging. The fly on the wall approach doesn't always work.
The value of blogging is immediacy. Otherwise, they become just another pundit and as the CNN polls clearly show, the viewers were not happy about that. Even PBS blew it.
"one generation got sold..."
So, instead of attempting to make it a noble but flawed event where innocents were hanged, tell us what the lessons learned are, and start preparing for the next convention.
First, bloggers are like any other source: they should have identified what they needed to cover and where they would find it before they got there.
Two, credentials are not a piece of paper; they are the recognizability of a journalist, the trust that the journalist won't embarass or ambush an interviewee, and the background knowledge that enables an interviewer to lead the subject toward a topic. This isn't inner navel blogging. The fly on the wall approach doesn't always work.
The value of blogging is immediacy. Otherwise, they become just another pundit and as the CNN polls clearly show, the viewers were not happy about that. Even PBS blew it.
"one generation got sold..."
If you wanna see what the difference between journalism and blogging is, don't go by what website the writing is posted to. I'm sorry the editors of "news".com have sunk to the view that balanced reporting is getting two views that are contrary to each other.
Balanced reporting is devoid of lies, for one thing.
Could you help me by pointing out exactly what I was lying about? (I didn't think I was purposely not telling the truth, did you mean that I was mistaken?) Is it saying that my years of experience blogging helped me learn that an event is different? Is it that the bloggers did little preparation for the DNC compared to traditional press? Is it that email is different than a telephone call? Is it my feeling that we need to experiment to learn? I'd rather not lie, so please help me learn how I messed up.
-DanB
I'm sorry. I didn't read the subject line carefully: "...bald-faced lies". An old photo of me is on the original article. It shows me with my full beard (it's now has much more gray). This is trying to be a pun of some sort... Nice use of words -- you must be quite practiced at this. In any case, I'd still like to know the specifics of where you disagree. I really would.
-DanB
Blogging isn't journalism or even reporting thus far. It is amateur observation of sometimes complex events. It is typically personal, untrained, and still isolated from mainstream journalism. If that is the sense of "experiment" Dan means, then he is right. On the other hand, just as the early web pioneers embarassed themselves with their 'observations' that traditional standards organizations were too slow to work in Internet time only to watch their cause celebres sink into precisely the same form as they attempted to work the same problems (form follows function), bloggers attempting to report events will take on earlier forms and which species they become among the genus will depend on their choices of degrees of training, preparation and advocacy.
If you wanna see what the difference between journalism and blogging is, don't go by what website the writing is posted to. I'm sorry the editors of "news".com have sunk to the view that balanced reporting is getting two views that are contrary to each other.
Balanced reporting is devoid of lies, for one thing.
Could you help me by pointing out exactly what I was lying about? (I didn't think I was purposely not telling the truth, did you mean that I was mistaken?) Is it saying that my years of experience blogging helped me learn that an event is different? Is it that the bloggers did little preparation for the DNC compared to traditional press? Is it that email is different than a telephone call? Is it my feeling that we need to experiment to learn? I'd rather not lie, so please help me learn how I messed up.
-DanB
I'm sorry. I didn't read the subject line carefully: "...bald-faced lies". An old photo of me is on the original article. It shows me with my full beard (it's now has much more gray). This is trying to be a pun of some sort... Nice use of words -- you must be quite practiced at this. In any case, I'd still like to know the specifics of where you disagree. I really would.
-DanB
Blogging isn't journalism or even reporting thus far. It is amateur observation of sometimes complex events. It is typically personal, untrained, and still isolated from mainstream journalism. If that is the sense of "experiment" Dan means, then he is right. On the other hand, just as the early web pioneers embarassed themselves with their 'observations' that traditional standards organizations were too slow to work in Internet time only to watch their cause celebres sink into precisely the same form as they attempted to work the same problems (form follows function), bloggers attempting to report events will take on earlier forms and which species they become among the genus will depend on their choices of degrees of training, preparation and advocacy.
over-articulate immature. I aalready know enough peope with
verbal opinions, including myself. Some totally unknown
'blogger' is not about to contribute anything useful to the world
set. And people with a real life don't have time to play internet
games of any kind.
over-articulate immature. I aalready know enough peope with
verbal opinions, including myself. Some totally unknown
'blogger' is not about to contribute anything useful to the world
set. And people with a real life don't have time to play internet
games of any kind.
Thanks for your reply. It is helpful to those of us who frequently comment about blogging to understand the disconnect between what bloggers think they are attempting to do and what others see or expect of them. I've been writing a blog and online commentary for over 5 years, and have had my material reprinted in "real" publications, cited by experts and many journalists, and used by professors in teaching. Readers thank me frequently. I must be doing something right in the minds of some people. I do not claim to follow a particular style or technique of writing, such as the one I expect to find in the "news" sections of the newspapers I buy. I just write what I think I should and let my readers decide if it's helpful. They write me back that it does, and tell me in person, so I continue writing.
The piece I wrote, after conversations with Charlie Cooper who knows my work very well, was supposed to be a rebuttal from someone in the blogging community with a technology bent and an eye for how innovation occurs. (The community is not monolithic, so the opinions only represent me, not any others.) I assume from your response that you have a problem with "blogging in general". I'll read your responses with that in mind, and hope to understand those feelings by seeing what you found problematic with what I wrote. You may not find what bloggers do helpful (or think that those you have found and don't like for good reasons negate the whole genre), and having you explain the details are helpful to me as a commentator frequently sought out by the press.
As I wrote on my weblog, "When it comes to the traditional press writing about blogging, I'm reminded of programmers reacting to developments like the spreadsheet when VisiCalc came out. Sure the 'programs' people wrote with it, and the 'databases' they kept as lists, were not up to the standards of 'real' programmers. But 'every-person programming and databasing' has proved a boon to society and has not really threatened the profession of 'programmer'. It has, though, changed the role of programmer by allowing many of the detailed, area-of-expertise-centric applications to be done quickly, effectively, and inexpensively. Likewise, personal online publishing, such as blogging, is providing a means for communicating feelings, facts, experience, and opinions..."
So, what are the details?
-DanB
Same lie that technocrats like Gillmore and Gillmor have a better perspective on the issues they used to report on, but now openly try to influence. Worse lie going around is that technocrats, and now "the Blogocracy" as they are now referring to themselves, is THE BEST to deal with the serious world situations.
I've been in computers for 3 decades now, so I can smell pretty easily that "the Blogocracy" is just another form of the aristocracy formed of the priesthood of technocrats. Except they don't know ALL THAT much about tech, even... They know A LOT (and a lot more than I do) about the eye-candy but nothing about the fundamentals of tech.
So any article that even talks about bloggers as being similar to the process of journalism (let alone better)..
..Well, that'd be fundamentally based on what...?? I mean, other than blogging confusion...??
Well, it'd be based on bloggers trying to get more people into the blogging cult, primarily.
I hope to give a few specific examples, relating to this specific article, Mr. Bricklin, as time permits today.
As I blogged elsewhere (forget which site I left this comment on), the introduction sets the tone of "David vs. Goliath" and who do we all root for?? You EVER see anybody root for Goliath, which is the effectiveness of the metaphor. Mr. Bricklin, this starts the trail of falsehoods reported on your blog, which was REPORTED AS JOURNALISM.
"This was not a contest between the best of 15,000 traditional journalists and the total output of a few dozen Web loggers. We were watching the start of an important learning process."
And this blogged stuff is attempting to MAKE EXCUSES for what has largely been seen, correctly, as a pretty pathetic attempt by bloggers to do anything remotely resembling journalistic quality, ethics, and value-for-the-reader.
Funny that bloggers themselves (that I've read) saw it DIRECTLY THE OPPOSITE, and saw the bloggers doing a BETTER JOB than the journalists. This is per usual, the usual bloggin' meme. Self-opinion normally being suspect, this is pretty obvious to non-bloggers or bloggers who still somehow have a little objectivity left about blogging.
Saying "This was not a prize fight, and they weren't even going after the same prize."...? Well, that's normally EXACTLY WHAT CHILDREN SAY, AFTER they lose a contest. "It WAS NOT a contest!! 'N there SHOULD BE NO COMPARISON (because nobody likes losing and I, being a blogger, am about showing HOW GREAT I am, not ANYthing about how I might not be SO GREAT AS I WANNA THINK I AM!!)" That's what I've heard children say, anyway, AFTER a POOR SHOWING.
But the more egregious error is in this statement:
(I'm going to skip over the stench of this purported reasoned-argument: "Many have written about the special nature of blogging with its intimate, first-person style aimed at ongoing readers." If you think of having a pen-pal as an intimate relationship, it ALMOST makes sense.)
"Unlike traditional media, which tries to use a few people to get the big picture, blogging as an Internet phenomenon uses a large distributed population for that purpose."
So the problem was only one thing, and the problem sums up to THERE JUST WERE NOT ***ENUF BLOGGERS***. Seen other's post similar or exactly the same.
It's not so much the self-inflated opinion that this reflects that bothers me, in this particular case. It is patently and ridiculously, plain and simply, as false as a statement can possibly be.
Which explains the title of this "semi-article".
I know the cult-meme, those 15,000 journalists all reported the same view that the mono-culture always does.
But IF YOU TRIED to get these 15,000 journalists to report the same stuff, you would fail, as does this lame argument which only bloggers and deluded journalists have bought, so far.
The build-up for "THE BLOGGERS ARE COMING.. THE BLOGGERS ARE COMING", and all those expectations...?
Only a confused blogger would dream that these 25 would be SO SUPERIOR in quality and content compared to the other 15,000 trained professionals.
Well, excuse my misstatement, because every blogger I read before and after has said essentially the same as you did here, Mr. Bricklin, confused or not.
Blogging is the same-as and/or different-than journalism (depending on which way the wind is blowing that day), and "everybody knows" that 2 journalists between them don't have the brains and the talents that ANY blogger has.
And the reason, supposedly, is that bloggers rely on BEING BIASED and the lamers are still making some attempt to be non-biased.
Yeah, stupid journalists is a phrase I've seen thousands of times, by these self-proclaimed geniuses.
I'd call that a lie, but instead I'll say don't buy somebody's hype about somebody else, if their primary source for all these memes boils down to their own opinion of their own self.
The math don't work out, that bloggers are journalists because they say they are, either.
Yeah, I gather that's not too popular a meme at the University of Blogaria, where they teach nothing but worship of their own selves and their fine "students".
Mr. Bricklin, what is someone like you doing in grade-school, which is what this "University of Blogaria" and the blogger-cult is, basically.
:
(I re-read and re-work these things as I go, and sometimes re-read entirely when I'm done. Not always, and not when I'm pushed for time.)
And, perhaps later, I can provide additional analysis, if necessary.
- I really would like to understand the "lies"
-
by
August 7, 2004 11:04 AM PDT
- J,
-
Reply to this comment
-
-
- "Lies" is a question of intent
-
by
August 11, 2004 10:49 AM PDT
- So why is the word "lies" so prominent on so many blogs?? That'd be the first lie, that bloggers have some innate wisdom to see these things, which non-bloggers don't.
-
-
- Do the math
-
by
August 11, 2004 11:35 AM PDT
- I'll MAKE time for just one or two of the mistakes, which I hope illustrates the problem of bloggers trying to get more people into the blogging cult, and how cult-think (an extreme form of group-think) effects the process of reasoning:
-
View
reply
-
(32 Comments)Thanks for your reply. It is helpful to those of us who frequently comment about blogging to understand the disconnect between what bloggers think they are attempting to do and what others see or expect of them. I've been writing a blog and online commentary for over 5 years, and have had my material reprinted in "real" publications, cited by experts and many journalists, and used by professors in teaching. Readers thank me frequently. I must be doing something right in the minds of some people. I do not claim to follow a particular style or technique of writing, such as the one I expect to find in the "news" sections of the newspapers I buy. I just write what I think I should and let my readers decide if it's helpful. They write me back that it does, and tell me in person, so I continue writing.
The piece I wrote, after conversations with Charlie Cooper who knows my work very well, was supposed to be a rebuttal from someone in the blogging community with a technology bent and an eye for how innovation occurs. (The community is not monolithic, so the opinions only represent me, not any others.) I assume from your response that you have a problem with "blogging in general". I'll read your responses with that in mind, and hope to understand those feelings by seeing what you found problematic with what I wrote. You may not find what bloggers do helpful (or think that those you have found and don't like for good reasons negate the whole genre), and having you explain the details are helpful to me as a commentator frequently sought out by the press.
As I wrote on my weblog, "When it comes to the traditional press writing about blogging, I'm reminded of programmers reacting to developments like the spreadsheet when VisiCalc came out. Sure the 'programs' people wrote with it, and the 'databases' they kept as lists, were not up to the standards of 'real' programmers. But 'every-person programming and databasing' has proved a boon to society and has not really threatened the profession of 'programmer'. It has, though, changed the role of programmer by allowing many of the detailed, area-of-expertise-centric applications to be done quickly, effectively, and inexpensively. Likewise, personal online publishing, such as blogging, is providing a means for communicating feelings, facts, experience, and opinions..."
So, what are the details?
-DanB
Same lie that technocrats like Gillmore and Gillmor have a better perspective on the issues they used to report on, but now openly try to influence. Worse lie going around is that technocrats, and now "the Blogocracy" as they are now referring to themselves, is THE BEST to deal with the serious world situations.
I've been in computers for 3 decades now, so I can smell pretty easily that "the Blogocracy" is just another form of the aristocracy formed of the priesthood of technocrats. Except they don't know ALL THAT much about tech, even... They know A LOT (and a lot more than I do) about the eye-candy but nothing about the fundamentals of tech.
So any article that even talks about bloggers as being similar to the process of journalism (let alone better)..
..Well, that'd be fundamentally based on what...?? I mean, other than blogging confusion...??
Well, it'd be based on bloggers trying to get more people into the blogging cult, primarily.
I hope to give a few specific examples, relating to this specific article, Mr. Bricklin, as time permits today.
As I blogged elsewhere (forget which site I left this comment on), the introduction sets the tone of "David vs. Goliath" and who do we all root for?? You EVER see anybody root for Goliath, which is the effectiveness of the metaphor. Mr. Bricklin, this starts the trail of falsehoods reported on your blog, which was REPORTED AS JOURNALISM.
"This was not a contest between the best of 15,000 traditional journalists and the total output of a few dozen Web loggers. We were watching the start of an important learning process."
And this blogged stuff is attempting to MAKE EXCUSES for what has largely been seen, correctly, as a pretty pathetic attempt by bloggers to do anything remotely resembling journalistic quality, ethics, and value-for-the-reader.
Funny that bloggers themselves (that I've read) saw it DIRECTLY THE OPPOSITE, and saw the bloggers doing a BETTER JOB than the journalists. This is per usual, the usual bloggin' meme. Self-opinion normally being suspect, this is pretty obvious to non-bloggers or bloggers who still somehow have a little objectivity left about blogging.
Saying "This was not a prize fight, and they weren't even going after the same prize."...? Well, that's normally EXACTLY WHAT CHILDREN SAY, AFTER they lose a contest. "It WAS NOT a contest!! 'N there SHOULD BE NO COMPARISON (because nobody likes losing and I, being a blogger, am about showing HOW GREAT I am, not ANYthing about how I might not be SO GREAT AS I WANNA THINK I AM!!)" That's what I've heard children say, anyway, AFTER a POOR SHOWING.
But the more egregious error is in this statement:
(I'm going to skip over the stench of this purported reasoned-argument: "Many have written about the special nature of blogging with its intimate, first-person style aimed at ongoing readers." If you think of having a pen-pal as an intimate relationship, it ALMOST makes sense.)
"Unlike traditional media, which tries to use a few people to get the big picture, blogging as an Internet phenomenon uses a large distributed population for that purpose."
So the problem was only one thing, and the problem sums up to THERE JUST WERE NOT ***ENUF BLOGGERS***. Seen other's post similar or exactly the same.
It's not so much the self-inflated opinion that this reflects that bothers me, in this particular case. It is patently and ridiculously, plain and simply, as false as a statement can possibly be.
Which explains the title of this "semi-article".
I know the cult-meme, those 15,000 journalists all reported the same view that the mono-culture always does.
But IF YOU TRIED to get these 15,000 journalists to report the same stuff, you would fail, as does this lame argument which only bloggers and deluded journalists have bought, so far.
The build-up for "THE BLOGGERS ARE COMING.. THE BLOGGERS ARE COMING", and all those expectations...?
Only a confused blogger would dream that these 25 would be SO SUPERIOR in quality and content compared to the other 15,000 trained professionals.
Well, excuse my misstatement, because every blogger I read before and after has said essentially the same as you did here, Mr. Bricklin, confused or not.
Blogging is the same-as and/or different-than journalism (depending on which way the wind is blowing that day), and "everybody knows" that 2 journalists between them don't have the brains and the talents that ANY blogger has.
And the reason, supposedly, is that bloggers rely on BEING BIASED and the lamers are still making some attempt to be non-biased.
Yeah, stupid journalists is a phrase I've seen thousands of times, by these self-proclaimed geniuses.
I'd call that a lie, but instead I'll say don't buy somebody's hype about somebody else, if their primary source for all these memes boils down to their own opinion of their own self.
The math don't work out, that bloggers are journalists because they say they are, either.
Yeah, I gather that's not too popular a meme at the University of Blogaria, where they teach nothing but worship of their own selves and their fine "students".
Mr. Bricklin, what is someone like you doing in grade-school, which is what this "University of Blogaria" and the blogger-cult is, basically.
:
(I re-read and re-work these things as I go, and sometimes re-read entirely when I'm done. Not always, and not when I'm pushed for time.)
And, perhaps later, I can provide additional analysis, if necessary.