I’ve never owned any personal pretensions to bloggerdom grandeur, but I knew that the medium had arrived last week when I heard an NPR reporter breathlessly ask her DC-based correspondent, “What are the blogs saying?”
It’s a fascinating market-based democratization of data, this pajamas media thing: People who have credibility, are reliable and interesting tend to gain market share based on their personal merits, rather than the imputed value of the firm they end up signing on with. The only gatekeeper of information is the preference of the reader as inspired by the value created by the writer. On the other hand, if you get caught making stuff up, no “stickiness” attaches to your host media – your URL comes off the “favorites” list and your market share falls precipitously.
Guess I was wrong. Washington Post sports columnist Tony Kornheiser – a man who might have profitably stayed inside his own lane – avers that bloggers are “toads.” You read blogs.
Mind the warts.
Cupla interesting tidbits from Wikipedia:
“Politically, Kornheiser describes himself as a “blue state guy”. Appropriately, he and Wilbon are close friends with Democratic political advisor James Carville, who has appeared several times on PTI.”
“Kornheiser has mentioned several times that he doesn’t frequently make use of the Internet or computers, and that he has never viewed his own Wikipedia entry.”
“While earning a name as a critic of many people and organizations, he is famously averse to criticism himself.”
Bloggers “Toads”? OH, I am so offended! If that is the worst insult he can come up with for bloggers well, then it isn’t much of an insult at all is it? “Toady boy” needs to hop off of his Proverbial “Toad stool”, take a real long look in the mirror then and crawl back under the rock from whence he came.
Kornholer is the reason the took the “Monday” out of Monday Night Football…
I can understand his feelings. If you spend any time at all reading sports blogs, you’ll come away with the belief that there’s a hell of a lot of blithering idiots out in the world…the sports world. For myself personally, and for as many people as I can get to come here and other places, these are the blogs that convinced me to give up my membership to the Naval Institute. I gets news here, real news. And worse, I’m addicted to it.
Byron, I wondered when I read it how much his opinion had to do with him being in the sports world. Thanks for the insight.
While I like to bash the Post as much as the next guy, this is a case of things being taken out of context and bloggers everywhere getting their panties in a bunch (sorry, Lex). Kornheiser was foolishly vague in his rant, and he obviously didn’t think anyone outside the D.C. area would be paying attention, but he was talking specifically about some place called dcrtv.com, with whom he apparently has some kind of feud going on.
It’s interesting that old-media types generally seem to perceive no downside in insulting their customers. Probably at least 10% of the WP’s readers are also blog readers. And in the current state of the newspaper industry, they really can’t afford to be driving business away.
I subscribed to the WP for years, but dropped it some time ago. The many pathetic offers of discounts if I would resubscribe were amusing.
There are a lot of blithering idiots in the sports world. A lot of them make good money at it, too.
“What do the blogs say?” should be followed with, “Which blogs?”
Let’s just say that there is rather a bit of variability in both temperament and quality in the blogosphere.